Juno News - United Conservative Party leadership results

00:00:00.000 hello everyone i am so sorry for that like terrible terrible attempt at a saturday night

00:00:09.080 live cold open it's like the anti-cold open where like you don't even say anything or look there you

00:00:13.400 think you're just minding your own business we are having some technical difficulties that i

00:00:18.140 believe have been resolved now i was actually uh texting just like firing everyone involved so no

00:00:23.180 no we're all good now i apologize very much for that slight hiccup but we wanted to make sure we

00:00:27.540 got it right because it is a big night in conservative politics and in Canadian politics

00:00:32.880 right now. The United Conservative Party in Alberta is electing a new leader, which means it's

00:00:38.740 electing the next premier of Alberta. Very big. The stakes are quite high here. I'm joined by my

00:00:44.340 colleague from True North, William Macbeth, and also in Calgary at the UCP Leadership Results

00:00:49.380 headquarters, Rachel Emanuel, who is our Alberta reporter. And we'll throw to her as soon as we

00:00:54.720 have some information on the ground there. But I do want to just give you a brief primer of what's

00:01:00.000 happening here. This race has been delayed. The results, rather, have been delayed by two hours

00:01:05.240 for issues that we haven't quite heard the scope of. But basically, the party said they had a lot

00:01:11.520 of ballots. They needed more time. People could be voting in person today. So that was part of it

00:01:16.320 here. Let me just ask you generally, William, why do conservative parties in particular even bother

00:01:22.680 telling us time frames. It seems like they get this wrong more often than they get it right as

00:01:27.700 far as keeping these things tight and on schedule for results. I mean, I don't think they obviously

00:01:33.980 set out with the intent to keep us all waiting. And what we see is only a fraction of the work

00:01:43.300 that has to go into successfully executing something this big. I mean, if you think about

00:01:47.580 it. They had a lot of mail-in ballots. I think something like 90,000 were mailed in from one end

00:01:54.320 of the province to the other. They also had five in-person voting stations, four or five in-person

00:01:58.480 voting stations set up that were taking ballots this morning. And to logistically get that all

00:02:03.080 together, that's obviously quite the challenge. But I think we're all quite excited about the

00:02:07.820 announcement that's going to happen about who will could become Alberta's next premier and

00:02:11.780 the challenges that that individual will face with less than a year. In fact, I think just really

00:02:17.080 about six or seven months until the next provincial election. Yeah, I think that is actually

00:02:22.180 quite a significant thing here. And I want to bring in Rachel Emanuel in Calgary, if she is

00:02:28.480 ready to get her take on this. But I'll ask you in the meantime, William, because this is a fairly

00:02:33.580 young party. The UCP was born largely because of Jason Kenney's efforts in the Unite the Right

00:02:39.020 movement, uniting the PCs and the Wild Rose Party. And I don't think anyone imagined that he would

00:02:44.200 be out the door so quickly, not even through his first term as premier. So what do you think this

00:02:49.980 says in general about the UCP experiment and about Jason Kenney and about Alberta?

00:02:55.080 Well, I think you're certainly quite right, Andrew. I mean, if you had looked at election

00:03:00.000 night a few years ago when the United Conservative Party won a very strong majority government,

00:03:05.520 it ended the one-term premiership or government of Rachel Notley and the New Democrats,

00:03:10.980 Alberta's only new Democrat government. And really, Jason Kenney looked like he was a political

00:03:17.820 juggernaut in Alberta politics. And of course, before being a premier, he had been a Harper

00:03:23.320 cabinet minister and an MP for years and years and years. So for him to have faltered or to

00:03:31.220 encounter the kind of problems he did, I think paints a picture of just how hard it is to be

00:03:37.400 premier of Alberta these days. And certainly the fact that we've had so many premiers over the past

00:03:42.200 six or seven years reflects the fact that keeping this job for more than one term has become very

00:03:47.040 difficult. One of the big challenges, I think, and this certainly weighs heavily in any leadership

00:03:52.340 race, is that you've got in Alberta more than anywhere else a province that you can easily say

00:03:59.580 is a conservative province. It's an inherently conservative province. There are a lot of

00:04:04.100 Conservatives and Libertarians in the general population. The Overton window is much further

00:04:08.560 to the right than, say, in British Columbia or Ontario. So I think people expect a lot more as

00:04:14.660 a result from the Conservative Party in Alberta, whichever party that is at whichever stage in its

00:04:19.700 history. No, you're certainly right. And it poses a real challenge, I think, for anybody who steps

00:04:26.320 in as Premier and leader of a party to try and meet the expectations that Albertans have for

00:04:32.800 what they want to see out of a conservative government. And, you know, even the vaunted

00:04:37.780 premiers of conservative premiers of the past, I think, for example, of Ralph Klein, he was

00:04:43.560 actually pushed out of his position as premier, because people thought he had maybe started to

00:04:50.100 rest too much on his laurels or wasn't really advancing on some of the major issues that

00:04:55.300 people wanted to see. And, you know, I would say here in Alberta, it's things like changing the

00:05:00.940 healthcare model? What, you know, is there room to have something other than a one size fits all

00:05:07.740 public system? And if any innovation is going to happen on some of these policy areas, I think

00:05:13.400 people expect it to come from Alberta. And certainly that's an expectation I think that

00:05:17.500 United Conservative Party members have and other small C conservatives have across the problems.

00:05:21.920 They want to see real change in innovation, not, you know, more of the status quo or moving along

00:05:27.780 at a snail's pace when it comes to

00:05:29.720 building policy. I want to check

00:05:31.860 in with Rachel Emanuel,

00:05:33.820 True North's Alberta reporter who is in

00:05:35.800 Calgary right now at the

00:05:37.520 live results show. Rachel,

00:05:39.900 what's the plan for tonight? What's happening?

00:05:46.320 Oh, I'm not hearing

00:05:47.440 Rachel's audio.

00:05:57.780 All right, we're not getting Rachel's audio. So we'll get that sorted out in a moment. Again, I apologize for the technical issues here. But at the same time, we are a bootstraps operation. So we will get this to you as soon as we can. Let's just talk about the road forward here, William, because obviously there's been a lot of confusion about the I don't even want to say confusion, but a lot of conflict in the race about the Sovereignty Act.

00:06:21.500 This was Danielle Smith's flagship policy, and it really became, I think, the punching bag that everyone in the race really started to take their swings at.

00:06:30.480 And I'm wondering, it's not a fait accompli, of course, but if Danielle Smith is the leader and if this is, as she promises, Bill 1 under the Danielle Smith government, a lot of these people that were railing against this bill will have to support it, will they not?

00:06:44.760 So how does the unity question work after a race like this? 0.68

00:06:47.560 Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think that will be probably, if it is Danielle Smith who's elected tonight, that will be a big challenge she has, is uniting her caucus, her new caucus, of which she is not yet a member.

00:07:01.880 She doesn't have a seat in the Alberta legislature. She would have to spend an awful lot of time making sure that caucus got on board with what she's been proposing. 0.63

00:07:14.160 And given how many of the leadership candidates came out very strongly against her signature policy, that unity is going to pose quite a challenge for her.

00:07:24.180 And caucus unity has been what has spelled the death knell for so many Alberta conservative leaders, if you think back to...

00:07:32.760 Including Jason Kenney. I mean, part of the reason we're here.

00:07:36.520 Exactly. But the reason we're all here is because he couldn't keep his caucus united and together.

00:07:42.320 And then before him, Alison Redford was pushed out by a caucus revolt.

00:07:47.420 Ed Stelmack really had to step down as premier because of a caucus revolt.

00:07:51.060 And, of course, at one point, Danielle Smith faced a very famous caucus revolt.

00:07:55.260 So the question will be, has she learned from some of these things in the past?

00:07:59.260 Has she learned from Alberta's political history?

00:08:01.800 And can she avoid repeating some of the mistakes that have been made by so many who came before her?

00:08:06.720 Yeah, very well said.

00:08:07.920 I think we have the feed set up with Rachel Emanuel again.

00:08:10.580 Apologies for the delay.

00:08:11.900 never want to deprive the people of Rachel Rachel tell me what the mood on the ground there is right

00:08:17.900 now what's happening people are just sort of slowly trickling in I think everyone as William

00:08:22.680 mentioned you know we've seen the polling people are expecting a Smith victory tonight the question

00:08:26.920 is really you know is she going to take it on the first bout is she going to take it later on but

00:08:30.580 people are excited for the results tonight as you mentioned it is a historic vote it's one of those

00:08:34.380 rare occasions when you're not just voting for the leader of a party but you're also voting for the

00:08:38.480 premier so certainly an electric feeling in the room tonight you know it's been a couple years

00:08:42.640 since we've been able to do these types of events and we're and we're getting back into them now

00:08:45.640 after covid but people are happy to be here today and excited to see who's going to be the new

00:08:49.380 premier of alberta you've been covering this race you've been keeping in touch with the campaigns

00:08:54.760 and the candidates has there been like one defining issue of the race apart from the alberta

00:09:00.180 sovereignty act that everyone's tried to you know get their piece of either it's danielle smith

00:09:04.040 pushing it or the others beating up on it has there been like one other issue that's really

00:09:07.220 been dominating here? Yeah, as you mentioned, of course, there's been so much discussion about the

00:09:12.080 Alberta Sovereignty Act. It has been one of the defining issues. But besides that, I think one of

00:09:16.200 the defining issues has really just been COVID-19 and the way that it's impacted Albertans and the

00:09:21.100 way they want their government to change going forward. Danielle Smith has positioned herself

00:09:24.760 as an anti-establishment candidate who's not afraid to shake things up. So we've seen that 0.78

00:09:29.620 come forward with her promises, for example, to never lock down Alberta again, to resist federal

00:09:33.700 pressure to do so, to never mandate vaccines and to change all the stations so that it becomes

00:09:37.820 illegal to mandate vaccines going forward. As well, another issue that I've heard brought up

00:09:42.020 at every single campaign rally that I've attended across the province is AHS, Alberta Health

00:09:46.460 Services. Albertans are absolutely not happy with the way that AHS operated throughout the COVID-19

00:09:51.500 pandemic. And, you know, we've even heard some complaints from the Kennedy government from it

00:09:54.640 that they asked for intensive care unit beds to be built. Those beds were not built during the

00:09:58.880 pandemic. And of course, fighting against Ottawa, there's a lot of Albertans who are not happy with

00:10:03.180 Kenny's record on getting a fair deal from Ottawa. And we've heard a lot of discussion

00:10:06.520 about that throughout the leadership race. So I would say those three things are sort of the

00:10:09.920 defining topics throughout the UCP leadership race. You've got, as you just mentioned, Danielle

00:10:15.180 Smith, who's been running as in a lot of ways, the anti-Kenny. Brian Jean, one of the reasons

00:10:20.540 he got back into politics was to take aim at Kenny. Todd Lowen, a former UCP MLA, kicked out

00:10:26.140 a caucus and now running for leadership. And then you've also got people like, for example,

00:10:31.620 Travis Taves, who was the finance minister, Rebecca Schultz, who was the children's services

00:10:35.160 minister, very key Kenny allies. So has this race really been split into the anti-Kenny candidates

00:10:41.580 and the Kenny continuity candidates, for lack of a better term? You know, it sort of has, but I would

00:10:47.580 say the split isn't quite, as you just mentioned, I've sort of seen people pairing Todd Lowen and

00:10:51.840 Danielle Smith together. A lot of people are saying, you know, vote Todd or Danielle one and

00:10:55.260 second. I haven't heard a lot of like commentary about Brian Jean fitting into an anti-establishment

00:10:59.880 candidate, although he has been very critical of Jason Kenney. And as you mentioned, he even got

00:11:03.900 into politics because he said he wanted to see a change in the premiership. We've also seen efforts

00:11:08.260 from some of the candidates to distance themselves from their record while they were in Kenny's

00:11:12.020 cabinet. Of course, Travis Taves, you know, he sort of hinted at it. He said, I can't talk about

00:11:15.860 what happened in those private COVID discussions, but, you know, I'm a farmer from rural Alberta,

00:11:20.340 and you can only imagine that I was speaking up for rural Albertans when we were talking about

00:11:23.940 lockdown. So, you know, he won't come out and say what he said during the committee meetings because

00:11:27.940 He doesn't want to break cabinet confidence, but he sort of, you know, pushed people in that

00:11:30.900 direction. He's alluded to it. And of course, as well with Rebecca Schultz, you know, we've seen

00:11:34.660 her say, I'm not from the boys club. You know, I might've been, you know, in Kenny's cabinet,

00:11:38.460 but I was never part of the inner circle. I was never part of the boys club. So certainly they've

00:11:42.560 all done their part to distance themselves from Kenny's record. I think they all know it is a

00:11:46.460 tough record to be up against right now because he is so low in the polls, but I would say a lot

00:11:50.740 of them haven't done so successfully. We just came off the federal conservative leadership race.

00:11:56.580 we did a show much like this one there are you seeing parallels between the two races or the

00:12:01.620 dynamics just completely different I am seeing parallels in the two races in the sense that

00:12:07.640 Pierre Polyev was sort of the obvious front runner and people were pretty sure he was going to take

00:12:11.260 the victory of course he won by a landslide victory you know even surpassing Stephen Harper's

00:12:15.740 numbers when he won the conservative leadership victory and we really saw for the first time that

00:12:19.620 conservatives were able to rally around someone now of course here in Alberta Polyev made some

00:12:23.900 campaign stops I went to those stops there were thousands of people there now of course when we're

00:12:27.700 looking at provincial politics we're dealing with you know less people are going to be engaged in

00:12:31.140 provincial politics a lot of times and certainly that was the case but I saw huge crowds rally 0.96

00:12:35.680 around Danielle Smith throughout the campaign she was pulling crowds in the hundreds I just didn't 1.00

00:12:40.140 see that with some of the other candidates it wasn't at least a consistent thing for them where

00:12:43.520 they were pulling crowds in the hundreds but I mean like as I mentioned before I think the main

00:12:47.320 question here is is she going to be able to pull off a victory in the first ballot and I think what 0.76

00:12:51.180 we're going to see if she doesn't win on the first ballot is there's going to be knives out for her 0.70

00:12:54.780 pretty quickly because she was so controversial and because she is so anti-establishment and

00:12:59.660 because most of the ucb caucus backs travis daves they didn't endorse danielle smith now some of 0.92

00:13:04.100 them switched their endorsement to danielle smith throughout the leadership race but she certainly

00:13:07.540 wasn't the caucus favorite and many of the caucus including jason kenny including his finance

00:13:11.840 minister jason nixon even came out and said they didn't support the alberta sovereignty act

00:13:15.880 i'll let you get back to the room in a moment but let me just ask you rachel what's planned

00:13:21.320 format wise i know there's obviously been this two-hour delay so technically they're supposed

00:13:25.780 to be starting up i believe in about three minutes time i don't think that's going to be happening so

00:13:29.560 what is the plan as you understand it so i'm told that we were supposed to begin at seven as you

00:13:34.520 mentioned it looks like that's going to be delayed now and then we're supposed to you know have sing

00:13:38.260 the national anthem the canadian national anthem then they're supposed to be a couple speakers and

00:13:42.300 then we're going to get right into the vote results very quickly so sounds like they're

00:13:45.940 running a little bit late even from the two hours that they push back but the good news is that once

00:13:49.920 the program does get started it doesn't seem like it's going to be that long of a program.

00:13:54.860 All right well I know you are going to be hunting down some movers and shakers to

00:13:58.800 interview them so we'll see you back throughout the evening. Thanks very much Rachel we'll check

00:14:03.040 in in a bit. Sounds good thank you. All right let me go back to you William on this so obviously

00:14:09.940 we've just heard from Rachel that this hasn't really been an exact clone of the federal

00:14:14.180 leadership race, but some very similar dynamics. I don't know if there's going to be in this race.

00:14:18.440 I don't think there is this really decisive first ballot Polyevre-esque victory. But in general,

00:14:24.820 where do you see moving forward? Because we were talking about the unity issue earlier,

00:14:28.480 and we've also seen a province that has been unafraid, generally speaking, and MLAs have

00:14:33.380 been unafraid to criticize their leaders. So do you think they are going to be able to unify?

00:14:37.520 Well, I mean, that is the, you know, tremendous question that will face whoever does win this

00:14:44.280 leadership race. I think a key difference, of course, between Polliver, who, when he won,

00:14:49.860 was the front runner for sure, but he also had an overwhelming amount of caucus support.

00:14:54.560 And I think that's a big difference is, as Rachel mentioned, Daniel Smith, if she does become

00:14:59.460 a premier designate tonight, a new leader of the United Conservative Party,

00:15:03.200 she won't have had a lot of caucus support going into it. So she's going to have to work quite hard.

00:15:09.740 One thing I think that she also has to do is unite some of the different factions within the 0.82

00:15:15.760 United Conservative Party. Because whereas I think a lot of people maybe agreed it was time for a

00:15:21.660 different leader than Jason Kenney, I don't think there's a lot of agreement right now on what the

00:15:26.000 future of the United Conservative Party looks like. So she's going to have to spend some of

00:15:31.420 her time and effort, really bringing those people back into the united conservative fold and making

00:15:37.320 sure that it's a cohesive party and team. And I think you're going to hear a piece of advice from

00:15:43.200 some other people that says things like she's going to have to, you know, pivot to the center 0.99

00:15:47.880 and she's going to have to abandon some of her core policies and things. Well, I can tell you 0.85

00:15:52.700 that in my opinion, that would be really quite a big mistake. You only have to look at when Erin

00:15:57.360 O'Toole ran on a pretty conservative platform for leader. And then after he won, he tacked to the 0.68

00:16:03.340 middle. Nobody was happy about that. So she's going to have to not get rid of the things that

00:16:08.880 successfully brought her to the leadership, but build a bigger coalition. And I think those

00:16:14.060 issues are like cost of living, Alberta's relationship with Ottawa, getting a fair deal

00:16:18.840 for our fiscal transfers, all of that sort of thing. And maybe, you know, some innovation in

00:16:23.440 Alberta Health Services and Alberta's health care system.

00:16:26.440 Sounds good. I want to check back in with Rachel Emanuel here.

00:16:29.520 I know Rachel has a couple of folks she's interviewing, 0.90

00:16:31.680 and one of them is Senator-elect Erica Barutti,

00:16:35.740 formerly the president of the UCP.

00:16:38.340 We'll go now to Rachel and Erica in Calgary.

00:16:42.560 Hi, yes. So I'm joined with Erica Barutti.

00:16:44.800 She's the vice president of the U.S. Department of Health and Health Group.

00:16:48.880 And I'm just going to ask her some questions today.

00:16:50.600 So what are you hoping for today?

00:16:52.040 What do you think is going to be the results of the leadership race?

00:16:54.240 Yeah, I mean, in an ideal world, we do have a first ballot, regardless of who's the leader,

00:16:58.440 because of the struggles that we've seen within unity of the party.

00:17:01.800 I do not think that's the case.

00:17:03.780 I think, you know, from what we've seen in the polls, as well as, you know, just the membership engagement,

00:17:10.160 I do think Danielle Smith will come out on top on the first ballot.

00:17:13.840 Well, we'll probably go through a few rounds before we figure out who's the next leader of the United Conservative Party.

00:17:19.760 And if Danielle doesn't have a first ballot victory, you know, we've seen a lot of her candidates, her opponents and other UCP MLAs attack her throughout this leadership race.

00:17:28.260 If she doesn't have a first ballot victory, is her ability to unify the caucus going to be that much harder or do you think it won't matter?

00:17:34.400 I don't think it'll actually matter.

00:17:36.260 You know, leadership races, many of us have lived through a lot of them.

00:17:40.340 She was the front runner from the beginning. 1.00

00:17:41.820 She was the only candidate that came out with a lot of pretty aggressive policies. 0.80

00:17:46.680 And that's kind of the theme of the campaign.

00:17:48.380 you know even across canada people are like oh the sovereignty act right it's not about names or

00:17:53.260 anything like that but a piece of policy uh that hasn't you know even been presented or written in

00:17:58.620 the ability for caucus to review so i think that a lot of it was the policy or the political tactics

00:18:04.540 as opposed to how people would feel when if she's actually the successor and the leader of the party

00:18:09.820 i think there'll be a little bit of a change um and i also think that you know every individual

00:18:15.100 that's in this race knows the sensitivities of unity and the challenges that caucus faced

00:18:20.460 and know that that's the biggest uphill battle to win the next election. We need to get the

00:18:25.660 internal team in order to be able to find the real enemy, which is Rachel Notley. 1.00

00:18:29.740 So you mentioned some of her pretty aggressive policies. Obviously, the Alberta Sovereignty Act 1.00

00:18:33.760 was something that Smith put forward. For those of our viewers who aren't aware of what it is,

00:18:37.280 it would essentially seek to bar federal legislation deemed harmful to Alberta's interest.

00:18:41.220 Now, I'm wondering if you think that the fact that so much of the leadership race was dominated

00:18:44.800 around discussion of this proposal was that beneficial for smith or did it actually put

00:18:48.400 her in a negative light for the general election with now a lot of albertans having pretty negative

00:18:52.400 views of this piece of policy i don't think it hurt her in the leadership race uh it is a pretty

00:18:57.440 like um party forward type of piece of legislation like the red meat for the base of the party so i

00:19:04.720 don't think it hurts her in the leadership race but yes the pivot is going to be um you know

00:19:08.960 probably be more challenging for her than maybe another uh leadership candidate however um i do

00:19:14.640 think there's a lot of process that goes into it there's gonna be onboarding and the drafting of

00:19:18.720 the legislation which i always say is like the part that makes none of this stuff that you you

00:19:23.360 run on super sexy um so no i think that there's still opportunity but it did definitely get hit

00:19:30.160 the airwaves um but i also think that you know unfortunately for the unity of the party that

00:19:35.440 That was kind of the attack by all other candidates to the front runner and on a piece of policy that she was running off of.

00:19:43.160 So it does make it a little bit more challenging for the internal inside baseball politics and also kind of the larger Alberta vote.

00:19:51.100 But I think when it actually comes to fruition, it's probably going to be less intimidating.

00:19:56.080 And, you know, even we've seen lately on something like the gun regulation or the clawback.

00:20:03.540 So, and you have Manitoba and Saskatchewan on side.

00:20:06.400 So there's some things in the Sovereignty Act that have already actually already been put in place

00:20:09.780 and stuff that we've now seen unity across Western Canada that will help Smith achieve those goals.

00:20:16.600 For sure.

00:20:17.360 You know, on the Sovereignty Act, we saw Alberta Premier Jason Kenney sort of waited and he commented on it.

00:20:21.520 He said he thought it would make Alberta a laughingstock.

00:20:23.800 Of course, then Kenney's third party advertiser Shaping Alberta's Future,

00:20:26.680 which on its website said it was created to promote Kenney.

00:20:29.020 It came out and was also attacking Danielle Smith.

00:20:30.980 It said she wasn't a real conservative and sort of critiqued some of her stances in the past.

00:20:35.200 I'm wondering if you think, you know, Kenny's decision to take a position in this UCB leadership race

00:20:38.760 impacted the outcome of the leadership race, and if so, how it did that?

00:20:42.840 Yeah, well, first I want to disclose, like, Jason Kenney is a friend and someone as party president

00:20:46.520 that I work closely with, but I don't think it's appropriate for a current leader to interfere in a leadership race.

00:20:54.100 So I do think that it was probably because there wasn't a strong effort or a success

00:20:58.180 by some of the other leadership candidates that he felt he needed to step in for whatever reason he

00:21:03.100 chose to. And I actually think it helped Smith. I think it helped Smith in a lot of the rural

00:21:07.600 ridings. I think it helped show that, you know, she is not so much of the same, which I think

00:21:12.700 people were frustrated with. And so, you know, obviously, again, on the broader population,

00:21:18.020 that didn't help because he has such a large voice across the province as opposed to just

00:21:22.840 the party. But I don't think it's going to hurt her in this leadership race.

00:21:26.180 Sure. Great. Well, thank you very much, Erica. I'm just going to throw it back to the room and see if there's any questions Andrew would like to ask.

00:21:32.380 One thing I would just ask, purely on a self-indulgent level, Erica, obviously you are a senator-elect and we know that the federal government has not regarded the Senate elections in Alberta as being legitimate here.

00:21:44.860 Are all the candidates generally in alignment that they want elected senators in Ottawa?

00:21:50.700 Are all the UCP leadership candidates generally in agreement that they want elected senators in Ottawa?

00:21:55.320 I mean, selfishly, I would really like that to happen, as I'm sure, well, you know, I'm not sure if all of the viewers know, I was one of the elected senators that was chosen by Albertans in 2021.

00:22:08.960 So I do think that they believe in that process.

00:22:11.860 I think that's a big sign of having our right to choose and having, you know, that regional representation that the Senate was actually designed for.

00:22:20.380 I haven't personally asked them, but I'm pretty confident that, you know,

00:22:23.480 passing that piece of the act and all of them voting in favor of it shows that they do believe.

00:22:28.200 I mean, we want to take, I think as UCPers, we want to take less power from,

00:22:32.520 take power, sorry, take power away from Ottawa and put it to our population.

00:22:37.340 So I can't see how under the party banner they would not support it.

00:22:41.280 Well, absolutely. All right. Well, thank you very much, Erica. I appreciate your insight.

00:22:43.740 Thank you.

00:22:45.340 All right. Thank you, Erica Baroudis. And thank you, Rachel Emanuel.

00:22:48.280 We'll check back in with them in a few moments time as things unfold.

00:22:52.600 Now, just to give you the lay of the land here, there were supposed to be results a little over two hours ago.

00:22:57.160 They've delayed their UCP program to start at 7 p.m. Mountain Time, which is coming up in negative six minutes.

00:23:04.560 So they are still running behind. Conservatives, generally speaking, do this often at leadership.

00:23:10.100 And Jason Kenney's press conferences, I should say.

00:23:12.360 Jason Kenney always gives good answers at his press conferences, but they never start on time.

00:23:16.860 I'm joined by William Macbeth, my colleague at True North, long time Alberta Politico.

00:23:22.060 I want to pick up where Erica and Rachel left off a little bit here, William,

00:23:26.240 and talk about Jason Kenney's decision to get involved in this race.

00:23:30.040 Very critical of Danielle Smith at the very beginning,

00:23:32.640 even when there was a challenge mounting over his leadership.

00:23:35.480 And now through the race, he's criticized her as well.

00:23:37.920 And this isn't typical.

00:23:39.340 Stephen Harper didn't criticize any of his successors.

00:23:42.580 Erin O'Toole wasn't criticized by Andrew Scheer.

00:23:45.120 and Pierre Paulyev, we hope, is not going to be criticized by Aaron O'Toole, and none of these

00:23:49.720 people got involved in the races. What do you make of Jason Kenney, who fancies himself a unifier,

00:23:55.640 generally, doing this and getting into this trench? Well, you're absolutely right that it's

00:24:00.360 highly unusual that a lame duck premier, lame duck party leader who has been, he didn't really

00:24:10.520 go for a voluntary walk in the snow. Party members did send him close to packing. If you recall in

00:24:16.980 the vote, he scratched through with something like 51% of support, but he deemed that not enough.

00:24:23.120 So it is very unusual for a sitting party leader to take swipes at any of the leadership

00:24:29.340 contestants, particularly the likeliest person to succeed him in the job. But I think one of

00:24:35.820 the points that that both erica and rachel made that's so good is i think he felt that the

00:24:41.460 candidates were the other candidates in the race were not doing a good enough job of raising

00:24:47.200 concerns and issues about danielle smith and about uh her sovereignty act proposal and about some of

00:24:54.180 her political history so i think he felt that since they weren't doing it we weren't seeing it

00:24:59.620 from effective opponent campaigns, he would take that responsibility on himself. Now, I don't think

00:25:05.880 it was a particularly great decision just because it's going to lead to bad blood. If it is Danielle

00:25:11.460 Smith, who's the winner in a couple hours tonight, then, you know, she knows that this is not who

00:25:17.380 Jason Kenney wanted to succeed her. And I also think it diminishes Mr. Kenney's record a little

00:25:23.760 bit because it shows again that he's offside with where his own party is by criticizing the

00:25:29.640 person who members could well make his successor in just a little bit. So one thing I want to ask

00:25:37.480 about Jason Kenney, and it may be too early to answer this question, is effectively about

00:25:41.680 what his legacy will look like. We know that COVID was very difficult, very difficult for

00:25:47.420 a lot of premiers. He's elected with an agenda. He gets, you know, maybe a year into it, a year

00:25:52.340 and a half into it, and he's got this pandemic to deal with here. Do you think generally people

00:25:56.980 will come back into a more moderate view of him as time goes on? I do think in the fullness of

00:26:03.720 time, he will improve in the eyes of history, that people will look at some of the things he did,

00:26:10.740 helping to kickstart Alberta's economic growth, getting Alberta back into growth and job mode,

00:26:17.320 cutting business taxes in order to attract

00:26:20.000 new businesses, diversifying

00:26:21.980 Alberta's economy. We're seeing lots

00:26:23.900 of great companies choose to set

00:26:25.920 up shop in Alberta because the government

00:26:27.720 did its best

00:26:29.940 to go out and recruit these people.

00:26:32.160 There's a famous advertising campaign

00:26:34.020 running right now in Toronto

00:26:35.900 urging young Torontonians

00:26:38.340 to come to Alberta. They can afford

00:26:40.020 houses. They'll find jobs.

00:26:42.020 They won't have to sit on the 401

00:26:43.840 for an hour and a half every

00:26:45.600 every morning to go to work. So I think history will be kinder. I do think he will suffer some

00:26:52.300 problems around how he managed COVID. And I think, to be honest, he hasn't really understood himself

00:26:58.360 where the problems were with what he did. And, you know, sometimes it's hard when it's you

00:27:04.360 to be, you know, introspective on your own actions. But, you know, the handful of things

00:27:10.460 that I'm thinking of was pursuing public health orders against pastors, for example, the flip

00:27:17.020 flopping on vaccine passports saying there wouldn't be one. And now they're and then making

00:27:22.760 it mandatory. So I think things like that, it's his COVID management that I think is going to

00:27:26.980 linger in some people's minds as the problem. But if you look at the non COVID things, I think

00:27:32.360 Kenny, JC Kenny actually has quite a record to be proud of. Yeah, I've heard of these ads trying

00:27:38.100 to woo Ontarians to Alberta and I worry for your sake and the sake of a province that I love dearly

00:27:44.080 Alberta it's going to be Florida where like they're going to import all their voting tendencies

00:27:48.300 as well but we'll we'll cross that bridge when we get to it I want to go back to Rachel Emanuel

00:27:53.140 in Calgary who has I believe someone from Danielle Smith's campaign with her we're going to do this

00:27:58.400 with all the campaigns take it away Rachel yeah hi thanks Andrew I'm here with Matthew Alltime he

00:28:03.500 was the campaign manager for Danielle Smith thanks for joining us Matt I'm wondering if

00:28:07.080 you're hearing anything so far if you have any predictions for what the vote result is going to

00:28:10.540 look like tonight my predictions are still the same as this morning where you still got to wait

00:28:14.780 for them all to come in and hopefully uh the hard work of daniel smith she's been a great candidate

00:28:19.360 to to work for hopefully that's results in a victory tonight sure great so i'm wondering if

00:28:24.120 you think there was any sort of fatal flaws in the campaign is there anything you wish that you had

00:28:27.460 done better you know big mess ups that you saw tonight that could lead to a lower turnout tonight

00:28:32.100 than you were hoping for i don't think so i think i have a sincere candidate who puts it all all

00:28:36.520 the cards to the table and really means what she says when she speaks and so she's in a great job

00:28:41.200 I think I we all stand behind her the entire campaign team 110% and what we've accomplished

00:28:45.760 and uh there's nothing we would change we've spoken about this a little bit on the show tonight

00:28:50.480 the Alberta Sovereignty Act dominated so much discussion throughout the you know the leadership

00:28:54.720 race you saw I'm sure at all the events that you were at I saw it at all the events that I was at

00:28:58.480 do you think that this benefited Danielle Smith or do you think that it was negative in the sense

00:29:02.460 that so many of her opponents painted it so negatively and that's a record that she's going

00:29:06.240 have to run against in the spring general election no i think i think we saw the first uh kind of

00:29:12.640 invocation of the sovereignty act uh last week when the justice minister kind of used it in a

00:29:17.040 way on the rcmp gun grab so and uh kind of a shocking turn of events vaskatchewan and manitoba

00:29:22.480 feel the same way so i think daniel's sovereignty act is exactly what alberta needs uh you know if

00:29:27.200 the toronto star hates it it must be working and i think albertans want a premier that's uh that's

00:29:32.000 it's strong and stands strong and means what she says and has strong policy to back it up.

00:29:36.660 Something that we've seen from some of Smith's critics as well is that she's going to struggle

00:29:40.120 with caucus unity. I'm wondering if you feel this way as well or you know you you've known her

00:29:44.100 better than most people would. Have you seen efforts from her in recent days to sort of unify

00:29:47.920 the caucus? Has she already begun working on building some of those relationships?

00:29:52.280 You know I think she's been reaching out to MLAs from day one and she's been able to attract a lot

00:29:56.800 of MLA endorsements including two who have switched from other campaigns. So I think it's a testament

00:30:00.900 durability to listen to sit down with people say hey what's going on what are your ideas and

00:30:04.580 policies for government i think that was refreshing for them to hear you know it's been a couple years

00:30:08.180 of division and a lot of emily's felt left out of the policy making process in government so i think

00:30:12.820 she's willing to bridge that and show them that she's genuine bring your policies and good ideas

00:30:16.740 to the table and let's let's roll all right well thank you very much matt back to the studio

00:30:22.740 all right thank you very much rachel and thank you matt we're going to have lots of interviews to

00:30:28.740 come with representatives from other campaigns as the evening proceeds Andrew Lawton here with

00:30:34.180 William Macbeth for True North and I just want to tell you here I mean this is one of many

00:30:39.540 opportunities that we take throughout the year when big things are happening to host a live show

00:30:43.060 around them sometimes we do them in the studio sometimes we have people on the ground and all

00:30:47.380 over like tonight and we cannot do any of this without your support and I truly truly mean that

00:30:53.460 that true north is a grassroots operation uh the reason we don't get the 1.4 billion dollars a year

00:30:58.080 uh if so we'd be doing it from like a private jet flying over the maldives or something not from

00:31:02.720 uh where we are but we are always always always striving to be on the ground for the story and

00:31:07.860 we need the people that value the work we do to support us so we can continue doing that so if

00:31:12.520 that is you please do head on over to donate.tnc.news donate.tnc.news and you don't need to be

00:31:19.160 from Alberta, we cover Ontario elections, federal elections, all sorts of stuff. And I think the

00:31:24.100 general tenor of this night is that the Conservative movement is having it say, not just

00:31:29.800 one particular party. And I think this has been a shift we've seen really in the last year. And I

00:31:35.220 want to just, I'll get back to the Alberta specific focus here, but I wanted to ask you about that

00:31:40.000 more generally, William, because there are, I think, a lot of parallels if you look at the

00:31:43.980 people that are being engaged in the process here in politics this year, from the convoy to

00:31:49.020 Pierre Polyev's leadership campaign to, I'd say, largely Daniel Smith, but in general,

00:31:54.240 the UCP leadership race as well. Are we seeing this significant turning point in conservative

00:31:59.600 politics in Canada in general right now? Yeah, I mean, I think it's so fascinating to look at,

00:32:06.180 you know, how conservative parties have changed and how their membership base has evolved. And

00:32:12.940 And I think you are seeing a pretty fundamental shift that actually started in other countries a bit earlier.

00:32:20.160 I think you saw with the election of U.S. President Donald Trump, there was very much this move away from establishment politics towards, you know, outsiders and, you know, getting rid of maybe some of the traditional alliances that had existed.

00:32:37.380 I think Republicans would have thought of themselves as the party of big business.

00:32:43.100 But in the last couple of elections, they've been really focusing on blue collar workers, people who live and work in middle America, who have seen their jobs exported to foreign countries.

00:32:54.600 You saw the same thing with the defeat or the successful Brexit vote where Britain decided to leave the European Union and the election of Boris Johnson with a huge then majority election.

00:33:07.380 And now I'm thinking Canada with the Freedom Convoy protest, you're starting to see this idea that too much of establishment government politics and society isn't working for ordinary people.

00:33:19.340 Jason Kenney's ads inviting young Torontonians to come to Alberta because they can actually afford a house reflects the fact that how did we get into this mess where people living in Canada's largest city can't afford to buy homes in that city?

00:33:33.080 that they're having to wait 30 or 40 years before they can actually get onto the property ladder

00:33:39.880 because of climbing house prices.

00:33:41.600 So I think that's why you're seeing a lot of the difference in who people are choosing

00:33:45.640 and why establishment candidates are having such a hard time connecting

00:33:50.020 because there is a very energetic, motivated base,

00:33:53.280 and populism is a factor that will stay in Canadian politics

00:33:56.920 and especially within conservative politics.

00:33:59.120 Yeah, that is fair.

00:34:01.020 And just to bring it back to an Alberta context, in Ontario, we had two parties that popped up that really didn't make a dent, that were trying to be the true conservatives, the alternative conservative option.

00:34:13.580 You had the New Blue and the Ontario Party in the polls didn't really translate to anything.

00:34:18.540 Alberta is a bit different.

00:34:20.380 The Wild Rose Independence Party has a leader who is a former or had, I guess.

00:34:24.920 I mean, there's a lot of internal turmoil there that we don't need to get into right now.

00:34:28.300 But they had in Paul Hinman, a leader that had been the previous Wild Rose leader.

00:34:33.680 They have in by-elections had a chunk of support.

00:34:36.360 They haven't elected anyone.

00:34:37.960 Now you've got an Alberta independence party with Archer Pulaski at the helm.

00:34:42.100 So you're always going to have, it sounds like, these aggrieved parties.

00:34:45.300 But in Alberta in particular, it does seem like it's harder to get everyone to play on the same team.

00:34:50.900 So do you think there is going to be an issue from these smaller parties in the next election?

00:34:56.320 I mean, I think that's a critical question. When I talked a little bit earlier about uniting the factions of the United Conservative Party, putting the word united back in that party name is going to be a tremendous challenge, because how do you square some of the different coalitions?

00:35:12.960 Like if you look at the slate of candidates running to be leader, you've got everyone from Lila Ahir to Todd Lowen.

00:35:21.900 And how can they both be in a single political party when they seem so opposite on so many policy areas?

00:35:29.140 So in some ways, I think the United Conservative Party will have to think about what it wants to be.

00:35:34.600 You know, who does it want to appeal to? What policies does it want to have?

00:35:37.860 And how can it build a broad enough coalition in order to win an election, but not become so big that it turned into the old PC party where it really stopped being conservative in many, many ways.

00:35:50.380 And why, you know, the Wild Rose Party, which is a party I worked for for four years, trying to make government, why that got the boost of support it did that even at one point looked like we might win an election.

00:36:01.800 Just one point I do want to make, which I think is interesting, was when Danielle Smith first announced her candidacy, I didn't know if Albertans were going to accept her return from kind of political exile after the floor crossing and after she had kind of blown up politically and was regarded as almost a pariah.

00:36:24.680 I didn't know how it was going to be that she could come back.

00:36:27.860 The fact that she has come back and faced relatively little opposition for it,

00:36:32.120 to me, tells me that she does have a very good chance of putting forward an option to voters

00:36:37.100 because they aren't going to, if her own party can forgive her for what had happened

00:36:41.420 and elect her leader, I think everyday Albertans can make that leap as well.

00:36:46.000 Yes, and I used to guest host for Danielle Smith when she was on the radio at 770 CHQR in Calgary. 0.94

00:36:53.260 And I remember when she started that show, I mean, the audience hated her.

00:36:57.640 It was very raw at the time.

00:36:58.860 And she's spoken about this as well.

00:37:00.400 And she did do a lot of work.

00:37:02.560 And one thing that I've said about Danielle Smith, and I'm not saying this against other

00:37:06.260 candidates, I've just specifically seen it with Danielle.

00:37:09.340 I would run into her at everything.

00:37:11.520 She was at every event, every conference, every meeting.

00:37:14.380 She really did, over the last several years, put in a lot of the legwork to meet these

00:37:19.700 people.

00:37:20.080 And a lot of those people, the ones that I was talking about a moment ago that might be inclined to support the Wild Rose Independence Party or the Alberta Independence Party, she's actually listened to their concerns and shares some of them, although believes that the UCP is clearly the vehicle to advance that.

00:37:35.120 So I think a lot of people who did have an open mind really did see in Danielle someone that was prepared to own that mistake and move forward.

00:37:46.160 No, you're quite right.

00:37:47.440 And I mean, I think if you have a leader who is prepared to consider alternative points of view, even if they don't necessarily 100 percent agree with them, I do think you have a lot of an easier time in keeping people inside the coalition.

00:38:01.620 I think to our illustrious prime minister, Mr. Trudeau, and how he handled the trucker convoy protests and something that people have really pointed to as why they disliked the federal government's handling was he simply wouldn't meet with the protesters and he wouldn't listen to their concerns.

00:38:20.580 And if he had done that, I suspect a lot of the wind in the sails of that protest would have gone, and it would have ended probably a little bit sooner and maybe wouldn't have involved the invocation of the emergency act.

00:38:34.740 But he wouldn't do it.

00:38:36.040 And I think Danielle hopefully has learned from that and said, I'm going to meet with everybody who is part of our coalition.

00:38:43.500 I won't necessarily agree with all of them, but I'll be respectful to them, and I'll be respectful of their views and their opinions.

00:38:48.760 uh just while we are waiting here i wanted to do a little bit of a throwback we interviewed

00:38:54.360 several of the leadership candidates uh over the course of the campaign on my show and obviously

00:38:59.080 rachel emmanuel has done some fantastic coverage on her end of it and i want to share one clip

00:39:04.760 we've been talking a lot about danielle smith i want to talk about one of the other contenders

00:39:07.800 here uh we have a shorter clip i think it's only a couple minutes or so but this is an

00:39:11.880 excerpt from my exchange with former kenny cabinet minister rebecca schultz

00:39:21.880 oh maybe we don't have the why is it that you want to be the leader of your party and the

00:39:27.160 premier of alberta you know i would say that first and foremost i believe in the future of our party

00:39:33.480 but also in the province of alberta we have so much to offer and we need somebody who can stand

00:39:41.080 up and defend the constitutional rights of Albertans, make sure that we continue to drive

00:39:46.160 economic growth and keep our party united so that we can defeat the NDP in 2023. Our provincial

00:39:53.260 election next year is in the spring. And so I think, you know, it's been a really difficult time.

00:39:59.600 You know, I think obviously everybody knows that. And I think instead of vilifying each other and

00:40:04.560 as conservatives, you know, you know, focusing on some of the things that divide us, we really need 1.00

00:40:09.820 leader who can bring us together remember who our true opponent is which is the ndp uh and take them

00:40:15.740 on here in alberta next year you know we had a leadership review for premier kenny that was very

00:40:21.740 close virtually 50 50 so no matter which way someone goes the party is divided the party is

00:40:27.900 split down the middle how do you not just build a winning coalition from that in the leadership

00:40:33.100 race but beyond that when you have that division in your party you know and it's tough and i think

00:40:39.500 you know everybody largely whether i'm talking to party members or albertans i think people agree

00:40:45.500 that they fully expect governments are going to make decisions that they disagree with

00:40:50.780 um you know i i don't think it's that what we've heard is that you know we've we've gotten off

00:40:55.980 track our government has done a lot of really great things our economy here in alberta um is

00:41:02.220 kind of on fire we're taking off coming out of you know like i said an economic recession a tough

00:41:07.420 two years our unemployment is at the lowest rate since 2015 more jobs created every day things are

00:41:13.980 looking up but we did get off track oftentimes people say it was our tone we felt like how you

00:41:19.260 were communicating decisions um didn't show that you heard what we were saying we we didn't feel

00:41:25.420 heard we didn't feel listened to um and so i think a we have to switch the tone b i am so dedicated

00:41:32.780 to the conservative movement um that is not something that's new for me i think we need

00:41:37.180 somebody who understands that the grassroots party members engaging with people uh door knocking

00:41:43.420 getting out there listening and taking action that's important that's just as important as

00:41:47.820 governing is keeping our coalition together and so i think you know it takes somebody that's

00:41:52.940 highly motivated very committed um the first thing i committed to do is door knock in every single

00:41:58.620 constituency across this province, meet with our local UCP community boards and those presidents,

00:42:04.860 make sure that they know that they have a seat at the decision-making table and that they're heard.

00:42:10.140 I'm willing to do that. Our opposition here, they are highly motivated. They are working

00:42:15.820 very hard. They are very disciplined and we need a disciplined team. We have an awesome team. We

00:42:22.220 have amazing, talented MLAs and they want their talents and strengths to be used as well.

00:42:28.620 that was my interview early on in the campaign with rebecca schultz one of the candidates vying

00:42:37.960 for the ucp leadership tonight as i've said we're checking in with the campaign teams in calgary i

00:42:43.760 want to go now to rachel emmanuel who's on the ground with vitor marciano from brian jean's

00:42:49.000 campaign hey yeah i'm joined right now by vitor marciano he is the campaign manager for brian

00:42:54.760 Gene, as you just mentioned. How are you doing, Vitor? I'm wondering what you're hearing so far

00:42:58.520 tonight. Do you have any results for us yet? No one has results yet. So we have little bits

00:43:03.200 and pieces of rumors from what our scrutineers saw in the count in the five different regional

00:43:08.260 counts. We're hearing some sense from the people who've been in the room watching the scrutineering

00:43:14.360 happening. It's going to be a tight race. There are three front runners. The other candidates

00:43:20.800 have you know run good hard campaigns but they're not as far ahead as the three front runners and

00:43:25.380 it's it's going to be it's probably going to come down to a fifth or a sixth ballot you said it's

00:43:30.540 going to be a tight race is there still a path to victory for Travis Taves and you know your

00:43:34.380 candidate Brian Jean who is usually pulling third and most of the polls I saw throughout the race

00:43:38.340 um for Brian we need to have uh have some of the people underneath us get a good result and get

00:43:43.160 some bounce back from that. That's still possible. For Travis, he needs to close in on Danielle

00:43:51.380 and stay ahead of us with our bounce back. And then there's a path. I mean, it comes down to

00:43:57.800 a lot of things. It comes down to the undervote. It's a preferential ballot. So on the final vote,

00:44:03.400 the denominator is different than it is on the first vote. So you can end up in a circumstance

00:44:08.440 where you can win on the final ballot with the number of ballots

00:44:13.660 that wouldn't have won it for you on the first ballot.

00:44:15.580 So it's a complicated system.

00:44:18.200 It's still available.

00:44:20.120 It's not a foregone conclusion who's won this thing.

00:44:22.460 You said it's a tight race right now.

00:44:24.060 It's shaping up to be won.

00:44:25.060 You know, some people in the room have been speculating.

00:44:26.680 People think it's likely a Danielle Smith win based on the polling that we've seen.

00:44:30.280 But, you know, some people even thought it was going to be a Danielle Smith win

00:44:32.460 on the first ballot.

00:44:33.560 Do you think that you're surprised by the results tonight,

00:44:35.500 or is this pretty much what you were expecting?

00:44:36.900 I would be very surprised if it's a Daniel Smith win on the first ballot.

00:44:41.700 I think Daniel is in the lead.

00:44:44.220 I don't completely buy all the polling because there's flaws in the polling when you're polling such a segmented type list.

00:44:51.520 But I do think she's the front runner.

00:44:53.680 But it's hard sometimes for a front runner to get over the top.

00:44:58.400 You know, front runners create their own weather pattern and they create a little bit of an opposition against them.

00:45:03.160 And if you don't finesse that exactly right, it gets a little hard to put the pieces together.

00:45:08.180 So, you know, if I had to bet today, it's probably more likely that Danielle wins than not.

00:45:14.260 But it's by no means certain.

00:45:15.780 And there's still a path for Brian.

00:45:17.400 There's still a path for Travis Tames.

00:45:19.300 Sure.

00:45:19.720 Something else we've heard a lot about in this leadership race is caucus unity.

00:45:22.560 You know, we need a leader who is going to be able to unite the party.

00:45:25.560 Do you think that if Danielle Smith doesn't win on the first ballot, she wins later on, on the fifth or the sixth ballot, as you mentioned, is still a possibility?

00:45:31.440 Will it make it harder for her to unify the caucus, you know, showing she doesn't have as much support as people perhaps thought she did?

00:45:38.320 When you win on the first ballot and you win big, you do a Pierre-Paulie Evers style win.

00:45:42.380 You get to claim a mandate that tells people, line up behind me, do what I tell you to do.

00:45:47.120 I won big.

00:45:48.300 When you win small, you've got to do different things to create caucus unity.

00:45:51.980 So you've got to take extra steps.

00:45:53.840 You've got to do more consultation.

00:45:55.460 You've got to listen to people more.

00:45:56.680 You've got to engage more.

00:45:57.740 there's an opportunity to build caucus unity in both circumstances it just requires different

00:46:05.580 efforts to do those things. Sure I just give a notice that we heard a five minute warning to

00:46:09.980 take our seat so that's good news we'll hopefully be getting some results pretty quickly but I have

00:46:13.840 just a couple more questions for you here you know you just mentioned some of the things Danielle's

00:46:16.840 going to need to do some different steps have you seen her making those steps already you know 0.89

00:46:20.560 has she been reaching out to your campaign has she been showing a coordinated effort to work

00:46:24.040 with you guys after today's vote? One of the disappointments of this race is the team Danielle

00:46:29.980 was probably a little bit more insular than the other teams. So they've got some work to do on

00:46:34.720 that front. There were open lines of communication amongst the other six teams. The lines of

00:46:41.260 communication with team Danielle were a little bit weaker. She's got to fix that. Doesn't mean

00:46:47.240 she can't doesn't mean that she won't if she wins but it's it's something that she needs to start

00:46:54.440 working on tonight if she wins um because they weren't working on it very much for the last two

00:47:00.200 weeks. Another thing that Danielle is going to be facing in addition to needing to unify the 1.00

00:47:04.100 caucus is of course she's going to be up for a general election in just a short matter of months 0.81

00:47:07.560 you know the Alberta Sovereignty Act has received so much attention throughout this leadership race

00:47:11.060 and a lot of it very negative attention even from within you know her own party some of the

00:47:14.740 opponents in this leadership race. Is that going to be a detriment against her in the general 0.99

00:47:18.480 election? I think that Danielle will have to refocus the UCP's campaign on the issues that 0.54

00:47:26.820 matter to Albertans. I think that's going to be a lot about health care. I think that's going to

00:47:29.640 be a lot about cost of living. I think that's going to be a lot about broader energy policy,

00:47:34.160 a lot of pocketbook issues. If she does re-establish her connection with Albertans on

00:47:39.880 those issues, they'll move past the Sovereignty Act. The Sovereignty Act, we're still unclear as

00:47:45.180 to what and how it is, and we'll get to see what becomes of it. But there's lots of room to pick

00:47:51.080 issues that move Alberta voters. Great. Thanks so much, Vitor. I'm just going to throw it back to

00:47:55.040 the studio. Thank you very much, Vitor Marciano and Rachel Emanuel in Calgary. That event is

00:48:03.160 going to be starting up in just a couple of moments. So if you're just tuning in, I'm Andrew

00:48:07.580 Lawton. Hi, thanks for being with us. Joined by William Macbeth. This is the True North results

00:48:12.540 show for the United Conservative Party leadership race, the second leadership race the UCP has ever

00:48:18.320 had. The first one, of course, seeing Brian Jean running again, going up against Jason Kenney,

00:48:23.300 who won very decisively. And the big question is going to be unity. And I know that we're talking

00:48:29.900 about Danielle Smith, who has been a clear front runner. She is not the winner yet and technically 0.88

00:48:34.580 may not be the winner. The reality is these ranked ballots can make a lot of different things happen

00:48:39.760 in the race. And you have to get over that 50% plus one threshold. And if, you know, let's say

00:48:46.420 Lila here and Rajan Sani and Rebecca Schultz do very well and their votes go to Travis Tavesay

00:48:53.680 or Brian Jean, this is a way that Danielle Smith could find herself in the lead on every ballot

00:48:58.640 except for the last one. And that's what happened federally to Maxime Bernier. He led every single 0.99

00:49:04.340 round of balloting except for the 13th which ended up being the final round and that was the round

00:49:08.960 that gave Andrew Scheer the win. So just as we're waiting to get things rolling here I want to kick

00:49:15.920 over to you William and ask you generally about you're a political strategist you've got a good

00:49:21.240 mind for this thing no matter who the leader is how do they get that runway clear and start

00:49:28.200 immediately from day one campaigning. So what is your if you're the chief of staff to the new

00:49:33.260 premier, whoever it is. What's your advice to them on the first seven days, the first 30 days,

00:49:38.120 and then the next nine months? So, I mean, I think these are critical questions and they're

00:49:43.280 the ones that every one of the candidates should be thinking about right now. At least initially,

00:49:49.980 caucus unity is going to have to be the very first job of the new leader. If it's Travis Tades,

00:49:56.100 that'll probably be a little bit easier in order because he had so much caucus support. But of

00:50:00.520 course, he was also in the Kenny cabinet that a lot of MLAs had concerns and issues with. So I

00:50:06.660 think he's going to have to try and explain and convince that some of his caucus that he is not

00:50:11.700 just more of the same when it comes to Jason Kenney and how business was before. And obviously,

00:50:18.080 we talked about Danielle and needing to bring in people who maybe haven't supported her in this 0.58

00:50:23.260 leadership race. They endorsed other candidates. She's going to have to really work hard to bring

00:50:28.120 them on board. But once she gets caucus unity done, I think she's going to have to spend a lot 0.56

00:50:33.380 of time traveling Alberta, meeting with groups of voters, meeting with, you know, the stereotypical

00:50:39.580 meetings in the church basement and sitting down with these groups and really listening to their

00:50:45.100 concerns and understanding them. And, you know, it's something she's done in the past. I mean,

00:50:50.020 I worked for Danielle Smith for four years and she loved to tour. And I think that's a real

00:50:55.780 strength. And it's something she had in common with Jason Kenney, who also loved to travel around

00:51:01.260 and meet with groups of people. So I think that's it. And then it'll be important to understand the

00:51:06.540 best way to fight and win an election in Alberta right now. And if it were up to me, I don't think

00:51:12.640 Rachel Notley is the primary opponent in an Alberta election. I believe it's Prime Minister

00:51:19.120 Justin Trudeau. So if I were the new leader, I would be talking about fighting back against the

00:51:25.040 Trudeau liberals fighting GAC against Prime Minister Trudeau. And I would try and sideline

00:51:30.460 Rachel Notley and the Democrats. Or if I do talk about them, I talk about them as part of that

00:51:35.020 liberal NDP coalition. So I think that was a mistake Kenny made was focusing a little too

00:51:41.180 much on Notley and not going hard enough against Justin Trudeau. I think that the new leader really

00:51:46.700 does have to understand there is little love in Alberta for the Trudeau family as a whole. Maybe

00:51:52.780 maybe his children. We don't know him that well, but we don't love him. We don't love his father.

00:51:58.740 And I think, you know, making him public enemy number one, really having him be the antithesis

00:52:03.400 is going to be a smart political strategy for whoever wins. I would agree with that. And it's

00:52:08.100 interesting because on the surface, I mean, any Alberta conservative I know just hates the very

00:52:12.140 idea of the NDP. But as a person, Rachel Notley does not have the negative association that Justin

00:52:19.380 Trudeau does on personality, on policy, on anything. And her government, I mean, did a lot

00:52:24.780 of very harmful things, but it wasn't a scandal-plagued government. I mean, as far as

00:52:28.740 integrity, I think Rachel Notley probably wins over Alison Redford, say. So you are right that

00:52:34.040 I think there needs to be this square focus on our enemy is not the NDP, our enemy is Ottawa.

00:52:40.460 Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, the good thing, of course, is that there is that ready-made

00:52:44.960 opponent in the form of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has maintained an opposition to

00:52:50.580 oil and oil and gas and pipelines and all sorts of things which are important to the livelihood

00:52:55.280 of Albertans. So there is plenty of opportunity to push that. And I think that's how Danielle

00:53:00.860 sells her Sovereignty Act, maybe not in the fine details of how it stops a law or may stop a law

00:53:07.540 or doesn't stop a law, but in sending the clear message to Ottawa that they need to get out of

00:53:12.820 Alberta and stop hurting our province. Yeah. And let me just, I mean, ask you just,

00:53:19.200 what are your top three issues on the agenda that you think the next premier needs to put

00:53:23.020 at Justin Trudeau's feet at the negotiating table? I mean, I think we're going to have to

00:53:28.760 have an important conversation about equalization. I think Albertans believe it is an unfair formula

00:53:34.200 and, you know, the left often likes to point out that it was negotiated under Stephen Harper.

00:53:38.940 Well, the world was very different when that negotiation last happened. And now we think that Alberta is penalized for having to send so much money to other provinces who aren't particularly grateful for the financial contributions Alberta makes to the Federation.

00:53:55.120 Quebec has has in particular maintained a very anti-energy policy towards Alberta. So I definitely think that's on the topic.

00:54:02.640 I think there are conversations around energy infrastructure. You know, the prime minister has said things like phase out oil and gas or end oil and gas. And I think Alberta has to be absolutely strong and say, look, we have this brilliant advanced sector that does a great job.

00:54:19.840 It is making improvements to how it does its business of extracting oil and gas.

00:54:25.140 And we are world leaders in some of that.

00:54:27.540 Why would you strangle something which brings wealth and energy security to not just all of Canada, but it could be to bring it to international countries as well?

00:54:37.520 And then I think if it were me, I would probably want to start to tackle health care because I think there's a real dissatisfaction amongst Albertans with the status quo on their health care system.

00:54:46.440 The Liberals have always said they will not tolerate anybody deviating from a single publicly funded universal health care system.

00:54:55.260 They don't want a 1.5 system. They don't want any form of innovation.

00:54:59.440 I think Danielle or whoever it is could take a firm stand and say, well, no, health care is a provincial jurisdiction.

00:55:06.000 We are going to innovate in health care.

00:55:09.160 Just if you're tuning in now, we are carrying the United Conservative Party leadership results.

00:55:14.440 results. They'll be starting up any moment now. The official program it sounds like is just about

00:55:20.660 to get underway. They're just doing some housekeeping and formalities right now and

00:55:25.040 once the the actual program and presentations begin we will throw live to it as soon as that

00:55:31.900 happens and that is is taking place in Calgary and what we understand is that after the issues

00:55:37.060 that they encountered today the the one thing that I would point out is that they are delayed

00:55:43.460 but they've promised, it sounds like, and we're keeping our fingers crossed that the results are

00:55:47.460 going to be delivered very quickly. So as I understand it, the ballots have been counted.

00:55:52.600 They have the result. They're not going to be needlessly going through the process of keeping

00:55:57.520 us all in suspense, which, as we know from the 2020 federal conservative leadership race, can

00:56:03.780 sometimes last quite a bit. That was the infamous broadcast that went to 3 a.m., but even the last

00:56:08.900 one was quicker for Pierre Paglia. But still, they did drag it on, even though they had the

00:56:13.540 answer. So we are going to go live to the events in Calgary. I believe they're just doing the

00:56:18.620 national anthem right now. But we'll go to that feed.

00:56:38.900 We see thee rise, thou true life's strong and free.

00:56:48.900 From far and wide, O Canada, we stand and guard for thee.

00:57:01.900 God keep our land glorious and free.

00:57:13.900 Oh, we cannot all, we stand on guard for thee.

00:57:23.280 Oh, we cannot all, we stand on guard for thee.

00:57:43.900 Thank you, Elizabeth. It's an exciting night to be together. The United Conservative Party

00:58:03.740 is a coalition built on a strong set of principles. Support for a robust civil society, free speech,

00:58:12.420 economic freedom, limited government, fiscal responsibility, protecting public safety,

00:58:21.720 and supporting the family. Support for these principles and the hard work of our leader

00:58:27.980 and our team led to our overwhelming election victory in 2019. Over 1 million Albertans supported

00:58:36.680 a platform that laid out exactly what we would do. And the UCP government has now completed

00:58:43.280 nearly 95% of those campaign promises. As a result, we live in a province with the fastest

00:58:56.860 growing economy in this country, with all of its advantages. Our leader, Jason Kenney,

00:59:04.160 has put his heart and soul into advancing the livelihoods of Albertans.

00:59:09.900 We intend to do a more fulsome tribute to him

00:59:12.940 at our upcoming annual general meeting in Edmonton,

00:59:15.980 but tonight, on behalf of the UCP Board of Directors

00:59:19.880 and all of our members, I want to thank him for his service.

00:59:24.120 Thank you.

00:59:34.160 we are better for his enormous commitment and wish him success in the future

00:59:40.800 it's an extremely exciting time for our party the leadership candidates have helped grow

00:59:46.400 our membership to historical levels they met tens of thousands of members at events

00:59:52.160 forums and our two official debates they have traveled from lethbridge to medicine hat

00:59:58.400 Calgary to Lacombe, Edmonton to Grand Prairie and Fort McMurray, and everywhere in between,

01:00:04.880 speaking with Albertans on issues that matter to them.

01:00:08.720 This leaves our party in a great position to take on the NDP in the upcoming provincial election.

01:00:21.600 While our economy is booming with the largest in-migration in our history,

01:00:25.760 we know that not everyone is benefiting equally the challenges we face are well

01:00:32.120 known the discussions have been robust congratulations to our leadership

01:00:38.360 candidates Leela here Brian Jean Todd low and Raj and Sonny Rebecca Schultz

01:00:59.840 Daniel Smith and Travis Taves for their thoughtful and caring discussions of our future.

01:01:17.060 To the campaign teams, all of you here and at home, you worked hard, played by the rules,

01:01:24.820 engaged in the process, scrutiniered in the verification center, and for the vote and count

01:01:30.860 today. You joined hundreds of volunteers who risked serious paper cuts, spending hours checking IDs

01:01:38.840 and making sure that every eligible vote could be counted. Thank you for your service.

01:01:44.220 We are pleased to report that close to 85,000 of our eligible members

01:01:54.220 have participated in electing our new leader, an incredible level of engagement.

01:02:04.300 Tonight, you will hear from both our Leadership Election Committee Chair, David Price,

01:02:09.660 and our returning officer, the Honourable Rick Orman, who we owe a deep sense of gratitude.

01:02:16.340 This process was executed under their leadership.

01:02:20.120 David was joined by a diverse group of experienced UCP members on the Leadership Election Committee.

01:02:26.220 We are grateful for their hard work.

01:02:29.320 The staff, under the direction of our Executive Director, Dustin Van Voet,

01:02:33.560 continues to work in the best interests of our membership.

01:02:37.020 We have one of the strongest political teams in Canada.

01:02:45.700 We are not quite ready for the results, so before I bring up David and Rick, let's talk about the days ahead.

01:02:51.920 We know why we are all here.

01:02:54.640 To ensure the re-election of a united Conservative government so that this province continues to move forward

01:03:01.040 and we don't lose all of the gains that have been made.

01:03:06.320 That's right. Albertans want to see this government re-elected, but in order to earn

01:03:12.480 their support, we need to be a disciplined party that Albertans can trust. We need to be united.

01:03:25.640 I've been listening to you, and I know you want to be united in fighting the next election.

01:03:31.520 Now, let me remind you that there are just under 250 days before that election,

01:03:36.320 I ask each and every one of you to think about how you can contribute to a successful campaign

01:03:42.600 in 2023. Whether you're a party volunteer or a candidate, whether your contribution can be big

01:03:49.920 or small, every part of our team is needed. One more thing, please join us at our annual general

01:03:58.800 meeting at the River Cree Resort at Enoch in Edmonton later this month. We'll be doing important

01:04:04.680 party business including board elections policy and government governance and election readiness

01:04:10.920 training and perhaps most importantly our new leader will be giving an address to our membership

01:04:18.280 you won't want to miss it it's a huge milestone we're choosing the next leader of our party

01:04:26.040 and the next premier of the province to all of our leadership candidates here tonight

01:04:37.960 the message from our party and members is simple we're behind you we're united

01:04:45.320 and we'll do whatever you need to win the next election and keep alberta on the right track

01:04:50.440 thank you I will now invite David Price chair of the leadership election

01:04:59.540 committee to say a few words about the committee's work David well thank you

01:05:13.840 very much Cynthia and thank you all for coming here tonight

01:05:17.500 Dear friends, our Leadership Election Committee was called upon in May earlier this year to

01:05:24.220 put in place the rules and procedures of our Leadership Contest.

01:05:28.620 The membership of our committee included 12 individuals from across our province and from

01:05:33.260 very diverse backgrounds representing an excellent cross-section of our membership.

01:05:39.700 I'd also like to note that every member on our committee served as a volunteer.

01:05:46.040 Every single member of our committee dedicated hundreds of hours to our task, sacrificing

01:05:51.680 time with their families and taking time away from their jobs and other commitments to serve.

01:05:58.800 These are some of the finest people that I have had the pleasure of working with in my

01:06:02.700 professional career, and I could not be more proud of the work of our committee.

01:06:09.500 Thank you.

01:06:13.840 Here our committee delivered robust rules for a fair, open, secure, and transparent

01:06:20.460 leadership election.

01:06:22.740 We did not promise we would be running on time though.

01:06:26.800 But our overriding ethos during this whole process has been that of integrity, accountability,

01:06:32.880 and fair play.

01:06:34.540 Our every decision has been governed by one simple question.

01:06:38.740 How do we do right by our members, by you?

01:06:42.460 Our balloting process flexibly provided for both mail-in and in-person voting.

01:06:48.220 The verification of ballots, the counting of ballots, and the calculation of results

01:06:52.840 today has taken place under the supervision of our Returning Officer, our Neutral Returning

01:06:59.640 Officer Rick Orman, and his team of Deputy Returning Officers and an army of volunteers.

01:07:06.100 In addition, all campaigns have been consulted throughout this process and have been invited

01:07:11.840 have their volunteer scrutineers observe both the verification and counting processes.

01:07:18.240 Of course, I want to thank the candidates and their teams for all their hard work. Each candidate

01:07:24.480 and all their volunteers should be proud of the energetic campaigns they've run,

01:07:29.360 the vigorous ideas and platforms that they've put forward, and their significant efforts

01:07:35.120 to recruit tens of thousands of new members to our party.

01:07:38.960 Most importantly, though, I want to thank all the candidates for standing behind our

01:07:44.380 process and respecting our rules.

01:07:48.940 In addition, I want to thank the party staff and all of our volunteers who helped get us

01:07:53.560 to this point this evening.

01:07:55.660 It's been hard work, and they have not only processed all those new memberships, but they've

01:08:00.540 ensured that we got over 120,000 ballots to our members in plenty of time to get them

01:08:07.280 mailed back and counted, and all said, we had approximately 85,000 ballots cast in this

01:08:14.200 election.

01:08:17.340 That is a huge turnout, folks.

01:08:20.440 And we could not have had a smoother process, and we are very grateful to the hard work

01:08:26.460 and the dedication of our staff and volunteers.

01:08:29.880 And finally, I do want to thank the party board, especially Cynthia, for their resolute

01:08:34.680 support of our committee and the trust that they placed in us to independently shepherd this process

01:08:42.280 it has been an absolute pleasure to have participated in this endeavor

01:08:46.440 as we close out this long process tonight thank you so much thank you

01:08:51.400 you. Thank you, David, and thank you to all of the dedicated members of the Leadership Election

01:09:04.500 Committee for doing such a great job. Okay, we are very close to getting the results.

01:09:12.300 We'll take a quick break before being joined by the returning officer, Rick Orman,

01:09:16.880 and the auditor from Crow McKay.

01:09:20.560 Five, ten minutes, and we'll be back.

01:09:31.680 Well, as you see there, they're doing the suspense thing

01:09:35.340 where they make his way for the obligatory five to ten minutes

01:09:38.020 before they come back and start reading the results.

01:09:40.620 That was David Price, who very well-regarded member

01:09:44.620 of the conservative movement.

01:09:46.060 I've actually, years and years ago, I worked with him very briefly.

01:09:49.480 Very great guy.

01:09:50.480 He is the head of the, basically the head of the election.

01:09:53.300 So he's been the one overseeing this.

01:09:55.140 He was just giving predominantly a thank you to this volunteer run effort.

01:09:59.620 And I just want to make a point here.

01:10:01.520 Obviously, you can do a leadership race on a very expedited timeframe.

01:10:05.100 I think the record goes to the Ontario PCs in 2018,

01:10:08.400 when they basically had to do the whole thing in about six weeks.

01:10:11.680 The UCP took about five months, but still, they weren't planning for a race.

01:10:15.160 They were planning to be getting ready for a general election right now.

01:10:18.680 So generally speaking, William, let me just ask you that.

01:10:21.620 Do you think that it has been a race that has been effectively and well organized and well run by the candidates and by the party itself?

01:10:31.300 Yeah, I mean, I haven't particularly heard a lot of concerns about the administration of the leadership race.

01:10:37.440 You know, the only grumbling I heard was the decision of having Premier Kenney remain as premier up until the new premier is chosen.

01:10:47.680 Although personally, I think bringing in an interim premier adds some instability when we were still in a time of dealing with, you know, a public health issue.

01:11:01.440 But no, I really haven't heard concerns that the race wasn't run in a fair and equitable manner.

01:11:07.440 Um, I, I think the campaigns of the different candidates, um, probably weren't the strongest

01:11:15.360 I've seen from some of them.

01:11:16.880 I think they fell into a bit of a trap that Danielle Smith set for them.

01:11:21.480 And that was, they spent almost all of the election talking about the policy issue that

01:11:27.300 she wanted to talk about.

01:11:28.800 And, uh, that when, when you're talking about your opponent's preferred policy, even when

01:11:33.720 you're attacking it, it's not good for you and your campaign. And so I do think that was a trap

01:11:40.000 a lot of them fell into. And I think if she is victorious later on tonight, I think there will

01:11:44.820 be people who look back on that and think that was a tactical error. Yeah, you are right. The

01:11:49.260 Alberta Sovereignty Act, like the name recognition, the name ID on that now is quite significant,

01:11:54.560 just mainly because of all the criticisms of it. Let's go back to Rachel Emanuel, who is at

01:11:59.880 UCP headquarters in Calgary 0.64

01:12:01.880 right now. Rachel, I understand

01:12:04.000 you're chatting with someone here.

01:12:06.440 Yes, thanks. I'm joined by John Horseman.

01:12:08.240 Horseman was a former UCP leadership

01:12:10.020 candidate, actually. He was in the race for about

01:12:11.900 a month, but he ended up dropping out and endorsing

01:12:14.120 Travis Tate. So, John, I'll just let you say

01:12:15.900 in your own words, why did you drop out of the UCP

01:12:18.020 leadership race, and why did you decide to

01:12:19.780 endorse Travis Tate? Yeah, so

01:12:21.900 it turned out I actually didn't have enough

01:12:23.980 time to build the momentum I

01:12:25.900 needed to be a credible

01:12:27.120 candidate in this race.

01:12:29.880 And when I saw eight great candidates moving forward, I just thought being the ninth on the table was just really too much.

01:12:37.160 The reason why I endorsed Travis Tays is I'd worked with him.

01:12:39.840 I'd worked with him as he was in the Department of Finance, and I knew he was a principal leader.

01:12:45.800 I knew he would create stable leadership for Alberta, which I thought was really, really important for the business conditions that we currently are living in.

01:12:55.400 And so he was my top candidate.

01:12:57.420 He, you know, for me, brought the most responsible government to the table.

01:13:02.000 You know, some of the interviews that we've had today with Vitor Mocciano, for example,

01:13:05.780 he's the campaign manager for Brian Jean.

01:13:07.700 He said he thinks there's still a path to victory for Travis Daves.

01:13:10.760 Do you agree that there's still a path to victory for Travis?

01:13:12.980 Or do you think it's more likely to go to Danielle Smith, who, you know,

01:13:15.840 everyone else is expecting to take home the win tonight?

01:13:18.660 I think there is a path, but I would concede it's a narrow path.

01:13:23.260 You can't say no until it's over, and you just don't know what happened today with the physical turnout,

01:13:28.940 and you don't know what's going to happen with the seconds and the folks that actually only filled out one name on their ballot.

01:13:36.360 And as those candidates drop away, it's very hard to predict.

01:13:39.840 Sure. And John, you've told me before that you're interested in running for the UCP nomination in Calgary Elbow.

01:13:45.340 Calgary Elbow is Doug Schweitzer's riding. He was the Kennedy Cabinet Minister.

01:13:48.340 He actually resigned. That seat is going to be open, but they're not going to do the by-election.

01:13:51.940 You know, if you put your name forward for that seat, does it depend on who's the leader or if Smith wins?

01:13:56.000 Are you still interested in going for the UCP nomination in that riding?

01:13:59.680 Yeah, it's a good question. I truly believe that I can help the UCP.

01:14:04.940 I can help Alberta and irrespective of who the leader that gets chosen tonight,

01:14:10.000 I can be helpful to actually move the province forward and also move the party forward.

01:14:17.820 And so, no, I'm committed to being a part of this.

01:14:22.040 If I can win the nomination, that would be lovely.

01:14:24.440 They haven't called the nomination yet, and I haven't submitted my paper,

01:14:28.140 so there's a couple hurdles yet to go, but I'm ready, and I'm in motion.

01:14:34.020 All right. Well, thanks very much, John.

01:14:35.320 We're going to go back to the studio now.

01:14:39.020 Thank you very much, Rachel and John.

01:14:41.980 The UCP is just taking a little bit of an intermission

01:14:44.960 while they prepare themselves to give us the results so we'll cut back to that in Calgary

01:14:50.340 as soon as we are able to as soon as we have a program to go to so don't worry you're not missing

01:14:55.760 anything there is right now nothing to be missed as far as results go but hopefully we'll have

01:15:00.980 those in the coming moments here and obviously John just mentioned in that interview with Rachel

01:15:07.000 that regardless of who the leader is he sees himself as being able to play a role and move

01:15:12.740 beyond this and I mean the theme of the night William you and I have been talking about it

01:15:15.980 since the beginning is unity do you think by and large that's going to be the message from a lot

01:15:20.520 of people that yeah they swap their blows during the leadership race but when push comes to shove

01:15:24.800 they want a strong conservative Alberta government to go up against the NDP to go up against Trudeau

01:15:30.260 and and they'll go along with whoever the leader is oh I I absolutely think you're going to see

01:15:35.900 a very coordinated message of unity from every public actor in this race. I mean, it will be

01:15:43.820 challenging for some of them, I think. I think, for example, Brian Jean kind of feels like he may

01:15:50.360 have been robbed of this leadership that, you know, when he put out his autonomy for Alberta plan

01:15:56.940 and had it compared to Daniel Smith's sovereignty for Alberta plan, that he probably wasn't thrilled

01:16:04.220 that that, you know, kind of captured his entire top line messaging. But yes, no, I think you're

01:16:09.080 absolutely going to see a lot of talk about unity, about talking, you know, getting back to

01:16:13.760 where we were, you know, doing things in the interests of everyday Albertans, all of that

01:16:19.640 kind of messaging. I think it's interesting, too, that you're probably going to start to see

01:16:24.740 a lot more targeted politics, because in Alberta, there's Edmonton, there's Calgary,

01:16:32.040 and there's kind of all of the rest.

01:16:35.420 But if you want to win an election in Alberta,

01:16:38.620 you really need at least two out of those three zones.

01:16:42.000 And Rachel Notley, very strong,

01:16:43.700 and the Democrats very strong in Edmonton,

01:16:45.720 very not strong in rural Alberta,

01:16:48.580 in the areas outside Edmonton and Calgary.

01:16:51.340 And I think Calgary will be a battleground.

01:16:53.320 So I suspect that the new premier and his or her team

01:16:56.680 will be spending an awful lot of time in Calgary,

01:16:59.260 talking to Calgarians and showing not just the successes that have happened under the UCP,

01:17:04.980 but putting forward an agenda that will appeal to Calgarians.

01:17:08.200 This, I believe, will be the city where the next election, the next government is decided.

01:17:12.640 We are, throughout the course of the evening, just playing some clips from our coverage and interviews

01:17:17.320 with the leadership candidates throughout the race.

01:17:20.040 I want to go to a clip now of my interview, just, I think it was about four or five weeks ago,

01:17:24.960 with Brian Jean, one of the candidates who we heard from his campaign team member Vitor Marciano

01:17:30.480 a few moments ago. Let's talk about the equalization aspect specifically. We know

01:17:37.180 that Albertans overwhelmingly voted to really re-evaluate the equalization system that we have

01:17:43.780 right now. And obviously the prevailing thesis is that when a province comes together like that

01:17:48.980 and votes in such a way, the federal government has to negotiate. But a duty to negotiate,

01:17:53.780 A constitutional duty to negotiate is not a duty or requirement to give any concession.

01:17:59.060 And the Liberals have been consistently resistant to, I think, respecting a lot of the concerns that Albertans have.

01:18:06.080 So what would you do differently or what would you do to actually get what it is that Alberta wants and needs from the federal government at that negotiating table?

01:18:15.000 I'm glad you asked that because other candidates are talking about getting angry and what we're going to do up to a certain point.

01:18:20.820 But they have no answers for what happens afterwards.

01:18:23.780 So they're riling people up, getting people mad for no reason.

01:18:27.780 We live in an amazing country, it's a free country, and the Constitution clearly lays

01:18:34.160 out that under Section 46, if a majority of a population in a certain area is dissatisfied

01:18:39.300 with the current Confederation and how they're being treated under Confederation, we can

01:18:43.980 send notice after receiving a clear mandate from the people, a majority of the people,

01:18:48.960 a good majority, we can send that mandate to the people under the Section 46 notice

01:18:53.220 then they have to sit down and negotiate with us and if they don't then we go to the supreme

01:18:55.780 court of canada and ask for reference listen you know let's be clear here i'm the only lawyer

01:19:00.660 litigator person that spent 10 years practicing the law here in alberta i know how it works i'm

01:19:04.740 not guessing that i don't have to talk to another uh government bureaucrat lawyer to tell me how to

01:19:10.100 pursue this and how to go forward i've spent enough time understanding both 10 years federally

01:19:14.260 as a member of parliament as a parliamentary secretary and as a practicing law in alberta

01:19:18.420 for 10 years and then as a business person i know what albertans want they want want more autonomy

01:19:22.500 more freedom less oversight and overwatch from ottawa i mean that's where all the gatekeepers

01:19:27.780 are that's what we have to remove from but but if the constitution gets them to the table what

01:19:31.860 do you do at the table that will get that change you need get the rest of the provinces on side to

01:19:37.140 get better hospital better health care funding get more rights in the senate and the house of

01:19:42.340 commons so we actually have equal votes across the country there are so many things that we need to

01:19:47.060 change the fiscal imbalance is clearly there equalization is one of those things the rest of

01:19:51.780 provinces premiers are ready to go to the table over the pipeline ban we're ready

01:19:59.380 that was my interview with brian gene in this campaign just a little while ago and we were

01:20:05.780 touching on in that interview the idea of getting a fair deal from ottawa and this was uh to your

01:20:11.860 point earlier william before covet came into the discussion here one of the big grievances i was

01:20:17.780 hearing from a lot of the conservative base in Alberta about Jason Kenney is that he wasn't

01:20:22.520 going to Ottawa banging his fist on the table and really standing up as forcefully as they wanted.

01:20:28.420 And Danielle Smith's answer to that has been the Sovereignty Act. Brian Jean's answer to it has

01:20:32.900 been autonomy. There is still a pocket of Alberta generally conservatives that want separation.

01:20:39.280 They're done playing. They want out of Canada. And I don't know how large that group is versus

01:20:44.840 how many of them are accessible UCP voters if someone is taking that issue seriously?

01:20:51.240 Yeah, I mean, it's an important question. I don't think support for sovereignty is quite as high as

01:20:57.580 it once was. I think when there was a NDP Premier in Alberta and a Liberal Prime Minister in Ottawa,

01:21:05.000 that was a breeding ground for separatist sentiment. I think certainly there was a belief

01:21:10.560 that none of our governments were on the side of everyday Albertans or the energy sector,

01:21:15.600 things like that. I think there is a sovereignty movement out there, but I think a lot of it is

01:21:21.160 probably just wanting to see concrete steps taken to try and protect Alberta from Ottawa's

01:21:28.700 intervention. So things like creating an Alberta provincial police force or having an Alberta

01:21:34.340 pension plan, or having Alberta collect all of the taxes, remitting only the federal share to

01:21:41.200 Ottawa rather than having Ottawa do the collecting. And so it's some of these things, some of which

01:21:46.860 will have a very big impact, others of which are a little bit more symbolic. But I think as long as

01:21:54.380 whoever becomes a new premier is seen to be actually making concrete progress on it, I don't

01:21:59.800 think you're going to see full-on separatist settlement really bubble up and become a motivating

01:22:05.660 political force in Alberta again for at least right now. Our colleague Rachel Emanuel has been

01:22:11.660 keeping very busy in Calgary and I understand she's got with her Rebecca Schultz's campaign

01:22:17.560 manager so we'll go to Rachel now if she's up and run no she's not ready we'll go to her in a moment

01:22:23.860 and she'll be with Rachel with Rebecca Schultz's campaign manager when we do go there. One thing 0.96

01:22:29.780 I will note here is that a lot of the time, and this happened in the federal election campaign

01:22:35.240 as well, we think things are a lot more acrimonious than they are. And then everyone does get under

01:22:41.560 the banner. So, you know, nominations, leaderships, they're supposed to be tense. So it's not the end

01:22:46.220 of the world when it is there. But the whole point is you also don't want like a liberal situation

01:22:49.840 where you give so many and so bloody attacks in the leadership race that they become the attack

01:22:55.020 ads in the general election. That was what happened with the famous, do you think it's

01:22:59.400 easy to make priorities line from Stefan Dion. We have Rachel with Rebecca Polak now, I believe.

01:23:06.900 Thanks, Andrew. I'm joined by Becca Polak, who, as I mentioned, is the campaign manager for Rebecca

01:23:10.920 Schultz. Thanks for joining us, Becca. I'm wondering if you have any speculations, if you've heard

01:23:14.900 anything about what we're expecting for the results tonight. You know, I don't know if I have

01:23:19.040 any speculations, but you know, I think over 85,000 of our members came out tonight. So I think that

01:23:24.680 says something about participation all I can say is I'm really proud of our team and where I think

01:23:29.980 that we are but no speculations quite yet. Sure and you know Rebecca was polling sort of in the

01:23:34.940 midway range throughout the campaign do you expect her to sort of fall in that in that voting area

01:23:39.340 tonight or you maybe expect her to surge ahead a little bit fall behind where do you actually 0.97

01:23:42.860 expect her to end up on the vote tonight? Well you know what I always like to think that I don't

01:23:47.600 follow polls because I think although it's it's a good measure I think Rebecca's going to do well

01:23:54.520 And you know what? We grinded to the very end.

01:23:57.460 We started this thing, and almost nobody in Alberta knew Rebecca's name.

01:24:01.720 And here we are tonight, and I think she's going to do well,

01:24:03.920 and I'm proud of her regardless of the outcome.

01:24:06.500 Something that I think was interesting about Rebecca Schultz 0.69

01:24:08.700 is so many of the other candidates were very keen to target and attack Danielle Smith, 0.95

01:24:12.920 the perceived frontrunner. 0.96

01:24:13.880 You know, people are expecting a Danielle Smith win tonight. 0.80

01:24:16.560 A couple weeks before the vote, there was a press conference

01:24:18.860 where four candidates decided to hold a press conference

01:24:20.880 and basically criticize the Alberta Sovereignty Act

01:24:23.200 and say that it was dangerous for Alberta and it would wreck investment in our province.

01:24:27.200 Rebecca did not join that press conference.

01:24:29.740 Why didn't she join?

01:24:30.500 And do you think it was the right move?

01:24:32.980 Well, I think that a lot of the campaign was spent talking about the Sovereignty Act.

01:24:38.400 And I think everybody had their opportunity to explain themselves,

01:24:41.940 if they supported it, how they would do things differently. 0.99

01:24:45.260 Rebecca had a 100-day plan. 1.00

01:24:47.160 I thought it was a great plan.

01:24:49.780 We talked a lot about the Sovereignty Act.

01:24:51.600 And I think there are other things that Albertans really, truly are looking for changes in health care, changes in education, affordability.

01:24:58.440 And and I think that that's where our campaign really stood out, was just sticking to those things that we kept hearing.

01:25:04.220 And so for that, I think that that was probably why we didn't show up on that stage.

01:25:09.360 You know, and I think that's a very fair argument because the Sovereignty Act did dominate so much discussion of the UCP leadership race and some of the other issues and policies didn't actually have a chance to to break through.

01:25:19.140 You know, on that point, we've been talking a little bit about how Daniel Smith was running sort of as an anti-establishment candidate.

01:25:24.340 And some of the other candidates, you know, they work for Kennedy.

01:25:26.340 They were one of Kennedy's ministers, including Rebecca Schultz, who was, you know, the children's service minister.

01:25:30.500 She often touts her record and the great child care deal that she got from Ottawa in that role.

01:25:35.000 She early on in the campaign said, you know, I'm not part of the boys club.

01:25:38.540 I was never part of the inner circle.

01:25:40.380 Do you think that she was successful in positioning herself as a candidate who was, you know, not associated with Jason Kennedy and didn't carry his record?

01:25:47.720 Well, you know, I don't know if it was disassociating from Jason Kenney

01:25:51.140 because I can't say that our record was all that bad.

01:25:54.540 Obviously, there's a reason why we're here tonight.

01:25:57.120 We didn't get everything right. 0.83

01:25:58.740 But I do think Rebecca was different than all of the other candidates in her own way. 0.73

01:26:03.160 She thought common sense. 0.96

01:26:04.420 She had ideas.

01:26:05.620 She took her platform from everyday Albertans and really listened to people.

01:26:09.480 And I think she has something to offer the entire group and Alberta that other people don't.

01:26:13.980 So I think on her own, and this team did a great job differentiating as just a good common sense conservative candidate.

01:26:21.780 For sure. And that was Becca Polak, the campaign manager for Rebecca Schultz. 0.89

01:26:24.520 I'm going to throw it back to the studio now.

01:26:27.500 Thank you very much for that, Rachel Emanuel, with Becca Polak from Rebecca Schultz's campaign.

01:26:33.340 So we've had representatives from Daniel, well, we've had representatives of a lot of the campaigns now.

01:26:39.160 I think we have not had anyone from Lila Ahir or Rajan Sani or Todd Lowen's campaign just yet.

01:26:45.900 But obviously, Rachel is working the floor there very well, and she'll be pulling people over to chat as best as they can.

01:26:53.800 William, let me get your reaction to that, because there was a little bit of, I don't want to say tap dancing in a negative way,

01:26:59.740 but I think there's a little bit of apprehension in the party on how to deal with the Jason Kenney question,

01:27:05.540 because he's very well-liked and well-regarded in the conservative movement broadly,

01:27:09.860 certainly if you just pluck the last two years out of the picture.

01:27:13.640 And I think that in the UCP, there is a little bit of a mixed emotion about him.

01:27:18.080 A lot of people very frustrated with what happened in the last two years,

01:27:21.640 but they also don't want to treat him as though he's toxic,

01:27:24.380 which I think would be incredibly unfair.

01:27:27.020 Absolutely.

01:27:27.720 And I think probably politically really unwise to tarnish the guy in the government

01:27:33.020 who's been in power for, you know, coming on three and a half years.

01:27:36.960 And Becca's points, which I think are well made,

01:27:39.660 are that the Kennedy government did a lot of good things too.

01:27:43.060 And I think, as I talked about a little bit earlier,

01:27:46.500 there might be a danger that a new premier goes too fast and too far

01:27:52.760 jettisoning either the legacy of the Kennedy government

01:27:57.560 or some of the policies that got them the win.

01:28:01.260 I think to be the anti Kenny, basically. Yeah, exactly. Either just to be the anti Kenny or to pull an Aaron O'Toole and drop the key things that got your base excited for you. And I think specifically, you're going to see a lot of pressure for Danielle Smith to maybe water down or even repudiate the Sovereignty Act. And in my personal opinion, that would be a politically very damaging move for her to make.

01:28:25.980 I think it would consign her to defeat.

01:28:29.040 Where candidates, and sometimes we're all guilty of this if we are on Twitter, we have

01:28:34.660 to remember that the people on Twitter are not real people.

01:28:38.500 They are a tiny fraction of hyper-engaged, usually very partisan people who you will

01:28:45.860 never win their votes.

01:28:47.040 But that won't stop them from telling you you have to do things to try and win their

01:28:51.560 vote.

01:28:52.100 You have to apologize for this.

01:28:53.760 You have to give up on that.

01:28:55.100 Whereas what it's really about is winning the hearts and minds of ordinary people from one end of the province to the other. Those people are not on Twitter. They are at their jobs. They are taking care of their families. They're living their lives. They're not hyper obsessing about all of the minutiae on Twitter.

01:29:12.380 So I think that's also something that candidates really have to bear in mind.

01:29:16.740 The people telling them to apologize, to drop their support for things, or to demonize the

01:29:22.160 Kenney legacy, these are not the voters that are even accessible to a re-elected United

01:29:28.220 Conservative government.

01:29:29.700 Yeah, and I also think it's very true, certainly in Alberta politics, that you can't win a

01:29:34.680 war on two fronts.

01:29:35.940 And Jason Kenney, I thought, did very well at pushing back against the media a lot of

01:29:40.560 the time.

01:29:40.880 I think he did very well at pushing back against the left.

01:29:44.000 I mean, the way he speaks about some of the environmental activists is stuff that I wish

01:29:48.480 conservatives were saying 10, 12 years ago, because even Stephen Harper was more subdued

01:29:53.680 in his criticism to a large extent compared to Jason Kenney.

01:29:57.220 And I've actually faced criticism for giving Kenney any credit at all, because there is

01:30:02.200 a lot of just very vicious, vicious hatred.

01:30:05.300 And I can't share in that.

01:30:06.860 If you want to if you want to take that approach, that's completely your choice.

01:30:10.460 But I think this guy has been a conservative stalwart and is frustrated and annoyed.

01:30:15.500 And I'll say, yes, angry at times, as I was with how the Kenny government responded to

01:30:20.180 COVID.

01:30:21.140 I also don't like refuse.

01:30:22.840 I refuse to judge people by the very worst moments and by their worst decisions.

01:30:28.200 And I think you have to look at a longer picture of service here.

01:30:31.620 And the fact that without Jason Kenny, there may well be an NDP government right now in

01:30:36.540 Alberta.

01:30:37.080 And I don't think that's an unfair claim to make.

01:30:39.960 Absolutely.

01:30:40.460 I mean, if you think about it, we were heading into another election cycle where there were going to be two strong conservative, small C conservative parties, the PC party and the Wild Rose party.

01:30:52.020 The Wild Rose party winning primarily votes in rural Alberta, the PC party winning primarily votes in Calgary.

01:30:59.240 But if they're splitting the votes in rural Alberta and in Calgary, it offers all the opportunity for Rachel Notley to win in one of those regions.

01:31:08.220 And that is largely why she won in 2015 was a big chunk of Calgary ended up voting for her.

01:31:15.660 So I do think that Kenny needs to be remembered as someone who made sure that, as he would like to say, the NDP were one and done in Alberta.

01:31:24.780 We only had we kept them to a single term. So, yeah, no, you're totally right.

01:31:28.300 And well, I didn't agree either with all of his management and COVID. I think there are obviously big examples we can think of how he approached some pastors and religious services, the decision to to call it the best summer ever.

01:31:42.120 you know, Alberta was open forever, except then we locked down again and brought in a vaccine

01:31:47.340 passport, things like that. And possibly he had taken a little bit more time to reflect and

01:31:55.680 apologize for some of those things. Maybe it wouldn't have gotten to the crisis point it would.

01:31:59.960 But certainly I do think there were a lot of great things he did, you know, part of which is

01:32:04.540 the rewriting of Alberta's curriculum, which had gone completely crazy under the Democrats.

01:32:09.260 And Alberta students were at risk of being able to neither do basic reading or basic arithmetic because of just education fads that the last government brought in.

01:32:19.120 So we did have a major curriculum reform, and now Alberta students are once again improving in core areas like mathematics and reading.

01:32:27.620 One thing that I will say is that we were talking earlier about how Jason Kenney was getting involved, I think, against most people's expectations in the leadership race.

01:32:36.720 I think in general, one of the things that's very interesting to look at here is the fact that Jason

01:32:42.500 Kenny's not going out quietly in terms of what he's doing as a premier right now. Like I can't

01:32:48.600 share my screen at the moment, but I have had like more Alberta government press releases

01:32:53.980 in the last few days than I think I've had in the last three years. So it just seems like there's

01:32:59.280 announcement, announcement, announcement, announcement. And I don't know if this is

01:33:03.800 just Jason Kenney getting things that were on his bucket list, off the bucket list, or if this is,

01:33:08.760 you know, in a lot of ways, just an effort to build momentum. But it's some, it does sometimes

01:33:15.580 actually, you know, give a bit of a complicated look at, are they committing the next leader to

01:33:22.160 things that they don't want to do? Are they committing the leader to a path that they aren't

01:33:26.060 necessarily ready to go down on? So I think we're going to have to explore these and many other

01:33:31.900 questions as the program continues. I'm getting the word that we are just about to go back to the

01:33:38.380 show in Calgary. So once I'm told to throw away, I'll do that. But just very, very quickly,

01:33:44.400 William, do you think Kenny is trying to just like do as much as he can in these last few days

01:33:49.840 that he's the premier? Yeah, I mean, I do think there is something to that. Maybe he just wants

01:33:56.240 to burnish that record, that legacy a little bit as he's in his final days of office.

01:34:01.760 But also as a premier who, when you do have that finite shelf life, you do want to get

01:34:06.480 things done.

01:34:07.360 And Jason Kenney has always been a politician who was about getting things done.

01:34:11.040 He wasn't, he was never just doing the bare minimum and letting the days flood by.

01:34:15.960 Jason Kenney was always active.

01:34:17.200 And even when he was a Harvard minister, very much the same.

01:34:19.740 So I think he just didn't want to go gently into that good night, as the poem says.

01:34:24.600 yeah fair enough i appreciate that and uh the feed that so as i understand there there is

01:34:31.740 someone on stage uh the feed is just getting caught up so we'll go back to that feed right

01:34:37.020 now this is live in calgary for the results

01:34:39.580 editor for this process to say a few words and i want to thank sam they spent hundreds and

01:34:49.520 hundreds of hours both in the verification center and during the count today

01:34:53.560 thank you everybody our firm uh chroma kai llp was engaged by the ucp to oversee and conduct

01:35:05.160 various agreed upon procedures over the duration of this ucp leadership race and election day

01:35:11.720 itself to begin with i would like to confirm that our team was independent at the start of the

01:35:17.400 engagement and has remained independent throughout the process the end goal was for us to be to

01:35:22.840 validate the election process and the tabulation of the election results based on the agreed upon

01:35:28.280 procedures that we performed to that end the procedures we performed covered custody and

01:35:33.400 security of the of the mail-in ballots the verification process of the ballots the in-person

01:35:40.520 voting process and finally the process over the security integrity and logic of the tabulation

01:35:45.880 software providing the election results thank you

01:35:57.000 thank you sam and to the entire team at chroma k for your support

01:36:01.480 and professionalism now i would like to invite our chief returning officer

01:36:07.160 Rick Orman to explain the voting process.

01:36:37.160 welcome ladies and gentlemen my name is Rick Orman and I'm the chief returning officer

01:37:07.000 and our job is to oversee the leadership election and ensure compliance with all the rules and all

01:37:13.000 the procedures i was assisted in this task by three exceptional deputy returning officers

01:37:20.680 doug caswell ken bradley and from edmonton annie travoy and by five excellent in-person dro's

01:37:29.160 those that were in the remote sites ian brody linda lowe stephen butt dale langford

01:37:36.200 and don hubble and we were supported by over 250 party volunteers who dedicated

01:37:45.160 countless hours in helping with our verification process

01:37:49.400 for the mail-in ballot and as poll clerks at our five polling locations

01:37:59.160 I'd like to thank all of these volunteers for their hard work and their loyalty to their

01:38:11.520 party.

01:38:12.520 And let me tell you, if anybody thinks this party is in trouble, they ought to come and

01:38:18.240 talk to me because I saw over, I saw 2,000 hours of volunteer time to make this process

01:38:26.080 work. The bylaws of the United Conservative Party require that a

01:38:36.340 leadership election be conducted via a one-member, one-vote system. Unlike the

01:38:43.840 federal party, we do not have a riding-by-riding weighted system. In Alberta,

01:38:49.720 one membership means one vote no matter where you live to be named leader a

01:39:02.440 candidate must win a majority of the valid votes cast if after the first

01:39:08.600 round no candidate receives a majority then the lowest place candidate will be

01:39:13.480 dropped from the race and we will relocate their ballots based on their

01:39:17.920 second choices and add them to the totals this process is repeated until a candidate receives

01:39:27.200 a majority 50 plus one vote and now ladies and gentlemen the time has arrived

01:39:34.640 we have the results for the first ballot no candidate has received a majority of

01:39:49.880 the valid votes cast so we will go to another ballot Lila here has dropped off from the race

01:40:00.200 and the next choice on those ballots will be redistributed to the other 0.93

01:40:04.700 candidates we had eighty four thousand five hundred and ninety three ballots

01:40:12.880 cast and I will read to you the percentage received by each candidate

01:40:21.100 Leela Ahir 1.65% Brian Jean 10.99% Todd Lowen 7.68%

01:40:35.860 Rajan Sani 2.11% Rebecca Schultz 6.9% Danielle Smith 41.31%

01:40:49.140 percent. Travis Taves 29.35 percent. So those are the results of the first ballot and I'll be back

01:41:03.220 in five minutes with the redistributed numbers. Thank you.

01:41:19.140 That was the first round of results in the UCP leadership race.

01:41:40.080 Now, I have to assume what they're doing is keeping us in deliberate suspense when they have the results in an envelope back there.

01:41:48.280 But they're going to do this thing where every round they're going to come out and take five, six minutes, 10 hours, who knows how many between them.

01:41:54.920 But I just want to give you those numbers here very quickly.

01:41:58.520 Leela Ahir, 1.65%. 0.98

01:42:01.140 She was eliminated on the first ballot.

01:42:03.480 This is an MLA, a very fierce critic of Jason Kenney.

01:42:08.060 Brian Jean, 10.99%.

01:42:10.380 Todd Lowen, 7.68%.

01:42:13.140 Rajan Sani, 2.11%.

01:42:16.280 rebecca schultz 6.9 percent danielle smith 41.3 percent and sorry 41.31 percent and travis taves

01:42:25.920 with 29.35 so danielle smith in a clear lead she's got a 12 point lead over travis taves but

01:42:32.820 not a runaway they go on to the next round and uh we'll crunch the numbers a little bit in a moment

01:42:38.580 but first i want to go to rachel emmanuel who's back in calgary with drew barnes uh formerly of

01:42:45.860 the UCP caucus now an independent MLA. Rachel go ahead. Thanks Andrew. As you mentioned I'm here 0.66

01:42:53.060 with Drew Barnes a man who really needs no introduction if you're an Albertan. He's quite

01:42:57.120 infamous in these parts. Drew we've just got the first ballot results. Lila Ahir has dropped off.

01:43:01.960 You're not too far from her and you're riding. Are you surprised by the results or is it pretty

01:43:05.580 much what you've expected? Oh it was exactly what I expected. You know Cyprus Medicine Hatters have

01:43:11.240 been very engaged and they've been proactive and they've been going out to the candidates meetings

01:43:15.480 as they've come through Medicine Hat and Leela just didn't seem to share the values support

01:43:21.480 their ideas I a lot of us expected her to be the the lowest and the first one to drop off

01:43:27.000 so thanks to Leela for for good effort and hard work but but her ideas weren't selling with the

01:43:32.760 UCP membership sure and you know Leela actually recently lost her board are you familiar with

01:43:38.040 this story at her the UCP AGM and her riding she lost her board are you aware of that happening

01:43:42.520 if you can just tell our viewers a little bit about that and what the implications of that are

01:43:46.120 well the implications are certainly we want to be grassroots we want to have as much local

01:43:50.600 engagement as we can but your board is your local volunteers your hard-working people the people that

01:43:56.840 help you develop your ideas and and your grounding as to what's to do at certain

01:44:01.720 times your kitchen table cabinet and the fact that she lost her board means that even in her

01:44:07.160 local area her support was waning and it would have made it very very hard for her as a matter

01:44:11.720 fact it may make it hard for her to win a nomination to actually just be the ucp candidate

01:44:16.600 in the next election and and we'll see where that goes um you know there was times during

01:44:21.080 the campaign as well where she shared some ideas that were considered conservative uh at one point

01:44:26.680 she her and danielle smith the front runner had a very public uh disagreement uh about things that

01:44:33.480 were said and and some labeling and so yeah let's uh you know let's move on to to making alberta

01:44:39.400 to the freest and most prosperous place the only way to do that is with true conservative ideas

01:44:43.980 for sure and speaking of those true conservative ideas drew you and i have spoken a couple times

01:44:48.480 about how property rights are very important to you they're important to your constituents

01:44:52.020 they are needed for rural albertans who need to be able to protect their land you know i'm

01:44:56.380 wondering if you're disappointed in the lack of discussion that we've seen in property rights

01:44:59.840 throughout the leadership race oh more than disappointed uh you know i was elected in 2012

01:45:05.660 with Danielle Smith and the Wild Rose,

01:45:08.520 one of the main proponents at that time was a Property Rights Preservation Act

01:45:12.900 and strengthening property rights to increase economic freedom,

01:45:17.620 individual opportunity, and the values that are important.

01:45:20.320 Jason Kenney even promised us a referendum to enshrine property rights

01:45:23.800 in the Alberta part of the Canadian Constitution.

01:45:26.160 He promised us a Property Rights Preservation Act, and so didn't deliver.

01:45:30.640 There's thousands of people in this room tonight

01:45:32.400 because Premier Kenney didn't meet expectations,

01:45:34.460 And the fact that this leadership campaign missed that as well is very, very concerning.

01:45:40.860 Property rights, although they're a bit out there in terms of how they affect your day-to-day life,

01:45:45.740 they're how we build wealth.

01:45:47.160 They're how we keep the government at bay.

01:45:49.500 They're how we pass things on to the next generation.

01:45:52.680 It's so time to get back to Alberta being the freest, most prosperous place.

01:45:56.400 Sure. And you know, Drew, I guess sort of the elephant in the room is that you were kicked out of the UCP caucus

01:46:00.440 at the same time as Todd Lowen, who is still an independent MLA,

01:46:03.380 but he's now running for the leadership so you know they allowed him to run for the leadership

01:46:06.880 despite having kicked him out of the party obviously you know not the same people making

01:46:09.860 those decisions but it is sort of you know an interesting an interesting tidbit now i'm

01:46:13.700 wondering are you hopeful do you want to get back into the ucp caucus and are you hopeful that you'll

01:46:17.940 be able to after this leadership race well well thanks for that um i'll start with i pulled my

01:46:22.860 constituents cypress medicine hat and about a third of them want me to stay as an independent

01:46:27.080 about a third of them want me to get back into the ucp caucus but to me what it's really about

01:46:31.880 rachel is as long as the new premier which will be just an hour or two from now is focused on

01:46:38.420 smaller government lower taxes more economic freedom and more individual opportunity absolutely

01:46:43.440 i want to be part of that you know everybody's fearful of another rachel notley ndp government

01:46:48.860 and of course the damage was severe the first time who knows what it would be the second time

01:46:52.620 but it's as important to work for our values our values of lower taxes smaller governments

01:46:58.000 more family involvement, and more choice in health and education.

01:47:02.140 I want a leader that will promote those for Albertans,

01:47:06.660 and I will absolutely support that within the UCP if that option is there.

01:47:10.660 Have you had any discussions with Danielle Smith about the possibility of rejoining her caucus?

01:47:14.840 I mean, obviously, I'm sure it would come down to a caucus vote,

01:47:17.240 but have you mentioned your interest to the potential new leader?

01:47:20.380 Well, thank you for that.

01:47:21.460 And again, I was elected with Danielle in 2012, and that was a good opportunity.

01:47:26.020 and I've been talking to Danielle quite a bit,

01:47:28.720 but I, for one, don't think it should come down to a caucus vote

01:47:31.220 because let's be clear, when I was kicked out,

01:47:33.600 Jason Kenney had his thumbs on the scales of that decision totally.

01:47:38.060 It wasn't a secret ballot.

01:47:39.620 Yeah, it was a caucus vote, but it was orchestrated by the leadership

01:47:42.600 and it wasn't a secret ballot.

01:47:45.160 So why should I be subject to something else on the other way back in?

01:47:50.500 And again, I've talked to a lot of my caucus colleagues even here tonight.

01:47:54.020 I have considerable support, and a lot of them are with me in the fact that I'm put in place by the people of Cypress Medicine Hat,

01:48:01.260 the 50,000 people that pay me to speak for them and pay me to represent them.

01:48:05.360 And if the people of Cypress Medicine Hat want me back in, I should be back in.

01:48:09.900 All right, absolutely. Well, thank you very much, Drew. We appreciate your perspective tonight.

01:48:13.300 Thank you.

01:48:13.940 And just before we throw back to Andrew over at the studio, I just want to mention that Raj and Sonny did have a little scrum a couple minutes ago,

01:48:21.180 actually before they gave the first ballot. She said she had no regrets about the way that she

01:48:24.920 ran her campaign and she was at peace with all those decisions. She also said something that I

01:48:28.500 thought was very interesting. She said, I will support the leader, whoever it is. Now, the reason

01:48:32.540 I think that's interesting is because Rajan Asani had sort of positioned herself as the Danielle 0.98

01:48:36.860 Smith attack dog throughout the campaign. She was very critical of Danielle Smith's Alberta

01:48:41.340 Sovereignty Act. And during the first UCP, official UCP debate, she was going after Smith at every

01:48:47.340 opportunity candidates sort of had the opportunity to pick which other opponent they wanted to spar

01:48:51.780 off with and you know rajin was consistently picking danielle and sort of tearing her to

01:48:56.100 pieces and even made some really personal attacks like you know alberta doesn't need a talk show

01:49:00.440 host so i do think it's interesting that she's now saying she's willing to throw her hat behind

01:49:04.520 the leader and you know could be a sign of things to come if danielle does win the leadership tonight

01:49:08.940 for that Rachel and thank you to Drew Barnes as well I've had Drew on my show a number of times so

01:49:17.960 it's good to see they let him in the building because when you get kicked out of your party's

01:49:21.420 caucus you never know if they're going to let you get around but obviously Todd Lowen has been

01:49:25.360 allowed to run as a leadership candidate and so far has outlasted Lila here a former Jason

01:49:31.360 Kenny cabinet minister which I think is quite significant now I just want to give you a bit

01:49:36.660 of a heads up here. We're about to go back to the results in a moment. The feed is going to kick

01:49:43.500 back in in just a couple of moments here. But I just want to point out again the numbers here

01:49:48.540 because the numbers are very important. Danielle Smith has 41.3% of the vote on the first ballot.

01:49:55.220 We are going to be in this for at least, at least three more rounds. And let me tell you how I know

01:50:03.460 that because the bottom tier candidates right now have very small numbers. Rajan Sani, 2.1%.

01:50:10.120 Even if every one of her people put Danielle Smith as their number two, Danielle Smith would still 0.99

01:50:14.960 only be at 43.4%. And then Rebecca Schultz, same sort of thing. If every single one went for Danielle 1.00

01:50:22.940 next, she'd be able to go. So the reason I think this is important is because the second ballot

01:50:29.000 is not going to be enough.

01:50:30.960 It can't be enough at this point

01:50:32.320 to deliver a victory on this round 0.93

01:50:34.400 to Danielle Smith or to anyone else.

01:50:37.080 And this is something we just get

01:50:38.400 from looking at the raw numbers.

01:50:40.000 So we'll go back to the feed

01:50:41.380 and get those numbers

01:50:42.140 to find out what they are though.

01:50:59.000 our party and even though we will be dropping one candidate off at a time we

01:51:05.960 cannot forget the contribution that they've made to this process

01:51:17.200 the hundred and twenty four thousand memberships that we have in our party is

01:51:23.000 to a large extent because of the hard work of the candidates and the people

01:51:29.420 that supported them. I now have the results for the second ballot. No

01:51:40.240 candidate has received a majority of valid votes cast so we will go to

01:51:45.260 another ballot. Rajan Sani will drop off with 2.66 percent. Thank you Rajan for

01:51:59.080 your hard work. Brian Jean, 11.25 percent. Todd Lowen, 7.71 percent. Rebecca

01:52:19.080 Schultz 7.32% Danielle Smith 41.41% Travis Taves 29.66%

01:52:35.600 so I will go back we'll redistribute the the second choice ballots of Raj

01:52:41.760 and sign-ease and we will then be back with those results so as mentioned just

01:52:55.520 the math there and I'm not a math person but thankfully I can do the basic

01:52:59.140 arithmetic not always the complex stuff but there just is not enough in that

01:53:03.640 ballot pool to redistribute to get anyone even Danielle Smith who right now

01:53:07.880 is in the lead over that 50 threshold but the round two results have danielle smith at 41.4

01:53:15.000 travis taves at 29.7 brian gene at 11.3 todd lowen at 7.7 followed by rebecca schultz at 7.3

01:53:26.840 and rajan sani dropped off at 2.7 now uh william i want to get your take on on the numbers here and

01:53:34.200 And I want to talk about the redistribution. 0.91

01:53:36.680 So Lila here, who was eliminated in the first round, had 1.6%. 0.95

01:53:40.360 And if you look at how her votes were reallocated, Danielle Smith went up 0.1%.

01:53:47.380 Travis Taves went up 0.3%.

01:53:50.200 Brian Jean went up 0.3%.

01:53:53.000 Todd Lowen stayed the same.

01:53:55.400 Rebecca Schultz went up by 0.4%.

01:53:58.020 And Rajan Sani went up by 0.6%, it looks like.

01:54:02.480 So obviously, Lila tended to flow to Rajan more than anyone else.

01:54:07.620 And we're talking about small numbers here.

01:54:09.320 So I don't want to extrapolate too, too much.

01:54:11.560 But it does seem like Danielle Smith, except for Todd Lowen, is benefiting the least so

01:54:17.120 far from eliminations.

01:54:19.620 Yeah, I mean, I don't necessarily think it would come as a huge surprise that if your

01:54:24.180 first choice in this leadership race was Lila here, you probably didn't have Danielle Smith 0.69

01:54:28.780 very high up on your ballot.

01:54:30.620 I, you know, what is interesting is I suspect a lot of people or at least a not insignificant number of people put no second choice.

01:54:39.260 They voted for Leela and did not appear to have a second choice.

01:54:43.000 That explains it to some degree why everyone's percentages also went up, because there are now fewer votes, total votes in the race.

01:54:51.080 The two things, though, that leapt out at me were, first of all, Todd Lowen, who I think everybody kind of thought was, you know, not going to be a major force in this.

01:55:03.120 He ran, I think, a pretty good campaign and did a pretty good job in the debates that I'd seen.

01:55:08.420 And I think his score is actually quite respectable.

01:55:11.440 He came far ahead of two current or former cabinet ministers.

01:55:17.220 he was a before he was expelled he was a backbencher as i understand correct

01:55:21.540 i believe he it's possible he may have had a position in caucus leadership to some degree but

01:55:26.980 don't don't quote me on that i don't recall exactly but no he wasn't a minister uh in the

01:55:32.520 kenny government um the other thing that really leaps out i think it's got to be a very disappointing

01:55:37.160 evening for brian gene uh you know this was someone who uh on the last vote for leadership

01:55:43.120 of the United Conservative Party. There were fewer candidates, but he had won in the 30s

01:55:49.880 in terms of total support. And to see him barely cracking that 10% threshold, I think,

01:55:57.980 is probably going to be quite disappointing for him and his team as the night goes on.

01:56:03.400 Yeah, I'm inclined to agree. And it's been weird. It's been a bit of a weird coalition. And we were

01:56:08.600 talking about this you and I earlier and also with Rachel it hasn't exactly been the Kenny camp

01:56:14.060 versus the anti-Kenny camp like Brian Jean was a big critic probably one of Jason Kenney's loudest

01:56:20.160 critics for quite some time but he also has tried to distinguish himself from Danielle Smith who

01:56:25.800 similarly has I think picked up a lot of the people that had a lot of angst about Jason Kenney

01:56:30.600 and I think this has been a little bit confusing and arguably this is the sort of situation without

01:56:35.740 a ranked ballot that could have led to a significant vote split. But as you mentioned,

01:56:40.320 there's been, it seems like a relative collapse in Brian Jean's vote. Now, obviously, he may

01:56:45.520 be the beneficiary of, you know, some of Raj and Sonny's down ballot support or that of Rebecca

01:56:50.820 Schultz or even Todd Lohan. We don't know until that happens. But it is interesting for a guy

01:56:55.860 that I think at one point saw himself as the heir apparent to the premiership of Alberta. And now

01:57:01.740 he's in a, not just third, but a very distant third on the leadership ballot. Yeah. I mean,

01:57:07.660 I will say that his decision to immediately quit as a MLA after Jason Kenney won the leadership

01:57:16.300 race, I think was probably in retrospect, not the greatest move because he could have been,

01:57:23.400 and I think would have been a senior cabinet minister in a Jason Kenney government. And he

01:57:28.560 would have had the ability to have a portfolio, to have consistent public profile. Instead,

01:57:34.920 he's been away and you would see the odd op-ed from him, but you really didn't hear and see

01:57:41.220 from Brian Jean that much after he left. So I think probably in retrospect, him getting a little

01:57:47.920 bit, I mean, I won't say he left in a huff, but he certainly left quite quickly after he didn't win

01:57:52.300 the first leadership race. I suspect maybe not have been the best move to win the leadership

01:57:57.720 in the future. We are waiting for third ballot results, but let's just go to Rachel Emanuel in

01:58:03.820 Calgary, who is right now with Conservative Member of Parliament, Chris Warkenton. Yeah, thanks very

01:58:09.940 much, Andrew. I'm joined by Chris Warkenton, who is a Conservative Member for Parliament for

01:58:13.440 Ram Prairie McKenzie, as well. He's also the campaign co-chair for Travis Daves. Thanks so

01:58:18.040 much for joining us, Chris. We have some of the results so far. What do you make of them? Are they

01:58:22.080 pretty much what you were expecting to see, or have you been surprised at all yet tonight?

01:58:25.760 You know, it really is a close race, as we expected. Obviously, this is tighter than, of course, had been forecasted, but it was very close to what we expected.

01:58:34.420 Do you think that Premier Jason Kenney wading into the leadership race had any impact on it?

01:58:39.340 Pardon me? I'm just not overhearing you here. Sorry about that.

01:58:42.880 Yeah, sorry. The feed has just started a little bit behind us. They're announcing their results right now. I think the feed is going to be a little bit delayed for them.

01:58:48.500 I was just asking if you think, you know, Premier Jason Kenney wading into the race and commenting on things like the Sovereignty Act, did that impact the outcome at all?

01:58:55.760 well i don't know i didn't hear from anybody that really felt that it did obviously there

01:58:59.680 were many people that were commenting on the race and you know i don't think that that had

01:59:03.040 significant impact on the intentions of people voting okay great thanks very much chris we're

01:59:07.600 just going to throw to the stream now but hopefully we can get you back a little later

01:59:10.000 for some more time thanks throw it back to you andrew thank you very much rachel and chris

01:59:16.880 workington and i i should say for those who aren't familiar uh chris workington was one of the very

01:59:22.240 instrumental figures in Alberta conservative politics who was driving the Unite the Right

01:59:28.160 movement. He was touring Alberta alongside some other members of parliament and alongside

01:59:34.340 surrogates for Jason Kenney. Jason Kenney himself trying to drum up support for Jason Kenney's PC

01:59:40.100 leadership bid, which then became the merger votes in the PC and Wildrose parties, which then became

01:59:45.520 the UCP leadership vote. So a lot of people forget all of the steps that Jason Kenney had to go

01:59:51.460 through to get to the UCP. But we're getting third ballot results right now.

01:59:58.740 Todd Lowen has dropped off from the race, and the next choices on those ballots will be

02:00:05.000 redistributed to the other candidates.

02:00:12.580 Brian Jean, 12.07%.

02:00:17.420 Rebecca Schultz, 8.02%.

02:00:25.360 Danielle Smith, 41.70%.

02:00:32.160 Todd Lowen, 30.41%.

02:00:38.380 And Todd Lowen had 7.81%.

02:00:42.920 So we will be back.

02:00:47.420 so that right there was a bit confusing i think they flubbed the numbers there but as i understand

02:01:03.820 from looking at uh what uh rachel has uh sent me here in in writing danielle smith still in first

02:01:09.880 place at 41.7%. So again, just a 0.3% bump in the last round. Travis Taves, he is now at 30.4%. 1.00

02:01:19.320 So he's gone up about seven points, it looks like. Brian Jean, 12.1%. So he's gone up 0.8 points.

02:01:28.300 And let's see, Todd Lowen now has dropped off the ballot. He had 7.7%, only went up to 7.8%.

02:01:35.900 So he's just shy of Rebecca Schultz, who is now in fourth place at 8%.

02:01:41.700 So here's where it starts to get a bit interesting.

02:01:44.880 Now, I should say, even if with four candidates left, Rebecca Schultz is eliminated and every one of her votes went to Danielle Smith, which is unlikely to happen,

02:01:55.420 Danielle Smith would still be at 49.7%.

02:01:58.860 So not yet at that 50% plus one threshold.

02:02:02.640 So, William, I mean, this is going to be, it looks fairly decisive, but she's having to work for her victory if it goes the way we think it's going to go.

02:02:12.720 Yeah, and I think to be clear, though, the next round we'll see Todd Lowen's votes redistributed.

02:02:19.280 So, Rebecca will be, we'll get.

02:02:21.420 Yeah, sorry, you're right.

02:02:22.640 I was getting ahead of us here. 1.00

02:02:24.500 But that's interesting because I think we will expect to see Danielle actually get a sizable bump in the next round of redistribution.

02:02:32.120 I think people who voted Todd Lowen one are very likely to have made it Danielle Smith number two.

02:02:38.620 And so that would take her not not into winning territory.

02:02:41.560 But if a majority of the votes did go to her, it puts her pretty close to it. 1.00

02:02:46.180 She doesn't need that many more votes in order to to go over the top.

02:02:51.040 And so the question is now, assuming there isn't anything particularly crazy in the next round and Rebecca Schultz is eliminated from the ballot.

02:03:01.640 where do her second or third or fourth choices go?

02:03:04.980 Like, where did the people who had other candidates go?

02:03:07.900 And I don't know.

02:03:09.100 I think she's, more than many of the others,

02:03:12.440 she didn't go after Danielle Smith Quaggis Hart,

02:03:15.700 as several of the other candidates did.

02:03:17.640 She didn't join that group press conference attacking the Alberta Sovereignty Act.

02:03:22.820 And so I don't really know.

02:03:25.660 But assuming Danielle does pick up a majority of the votes from Todd Lowen, 0.95

02:03:30.100 she is going to be pretty close on that next round. And it's possible we would see

02:03:36.020 Rebecca's votes redistributed and that would be enough to get her over the top. 1.00

02:03:41.000 Yeah. And thank you for correcting the numbers there. So the 7.8%, even if every single one of

02:03:48.100 those went to Danielle Smith, she would be at, just to do the quick math here, 48.5%, I believe,

02:03:57.140 48.5%. So still, we can't get 50% plus one. You're right, though. I mean, after that,

02:04:03.560 it definitely does look like it's all but certainly a Danielle Smith victory. But

02:04:08.740 you still have to wonder how it's going to get there. And I wouldn't be surprised if

02:04:12.680 even assuming Rebecca Schultz is the next one to go. I mean, something weird could happen. But

02:04:18.100 even if that happens, it's possible that if a small, small share of Rebecca Schultz votes go

02:04:24.560 to Danielle Smith, they could go to yet another ballot. So that'll be the thing to watch here. 0.57

02:04:28.980 But I just want to kind of ask you a bit more broadly about your take on some of these players.

02:04:35.540 I mean, Rebecca Schultz has always struck me as a team player. She's been a movement conservative.

02:04:40.880 I've been on stage with her at Canada Strong and Free networking conferences in the past. So

02:04:45.820 I think she's definitely going to be one that will happily support whoever the next leader is.

02:04:51.000 Brian Jean is the one that I find quite interesting here because he and Danielle Smith have both really tried to be and saw themselves as the alternate Kenny.

02:05:01.180 So can those two work together in your view?

02:05:04.580 Well, I think it's a very interesting question.

02:05:06.880 I would absolutely agree.

02:05:08.240 Rebecca Schultz, I think she's done also well enough in this leadership race, improving her name recognition and her overall profile that I would expect to see her as a senior cabinet position in, say, a Daniel Smith-led government. 0.90

02:05:22.980 Certainly, I think if it's Travis Tades, we would expect the same thing to have Rebecca Schultz there.

02:05:29.080 Brian Jean, I don't know.

02:05:30.440 I don't know what the personal dynamic is.

02:05:32.780 Vitor talked a little bit about how the Danielle Smith team was a little bit cut off from some of

02:05:38.500 the inter-campaign communications that have been going on. So I don't know. It will really be up

02:05:43.940 to Brian if he decides, if he wants to work and be part of it and stay as a UCP MLA. Of course,

02:05:51.440 he's only been an MLA for quite a short period of time, having won a by-election. Or does he do

02:05:58.560 what he did last time. And he says, well, I'm going to resign. I'm going to wait a little bit

02:06:03.060 and step down. I think if he were to do that second option, we would have a very hard time

02:06:08.680 seeing him try and mount a third leadership campaign. Because at some point, it would become

02:06:13.240 a bit of a game of, you know, Brian doesn't win, so he quits. And then a few years go by,

02:06:19.000 back he comes, he doesn't win, so he quits. And I think that little routine might start to get

02:06:24.560 very old for UCP members. Let's bring Rachel Emanuel into the discussion here now. She's been

02:06:32.020 working furiously on the ground, bringing over pretty much anyone and everyone to the microphone 0.50

02:06:37.320 there and interviewing them. And you've been doing a bang up job, Rachel. But just in the lull here,

02:06:42.360 has it seemed like everyone in the room, just from the shocks and gasps or lack thereof,

02:06:49.240 that this is going pretty much how everyone thought, even if they were on different campaigns?

02:06:54.560 Yeah, well, I would say it's a little harder to get guests as the night goes on.

02:06:57.740 I think people are drinking a little bit more and more,

02:06:59.880 and people are less interested in coming on and giving their takes.

02:07:02.800 But no, I don't think...

02:07:03.880 They should be more interested in coming on when they're like five beers in.

02:07:06.940 Come on.

02:07:07.400 You would think, you would think, yeah.

02:07:08.780 No, I don't think people in the room have seemed very surprised yet.

02:07:12.300 They've seemed, you know, pretty excited with the results people are cheering.

02:07:14.900 You have to remember there's a lot of different people

02:07:17.000 from a lot of the different campaigns here.

02:07:18.960 So we're seeing a variety of perspectives.

02:07:20.920 And they've just announced behind me now, as we sort of expected,

02:07:23.740 rebecca schultz has dropped off the ballot and the rest of the candidates are remaining so you

02:07:28.520 know we still have a few rounds to go here people in the room seem very energetic they seem very

02:07:32.180 excited about the results as they're coming in and you know i think the fact that it's getting

02:07:35.540 down into the later ballot is making it more of an exciting race so andrew i'll throw back to you

02:07:39.660 now because i'm sure your stream's going to catch up soon and you guys can throw back to the live

02:07:43.180 stream as well thanks very much for that certainly we heard some raucous cheering there we'll pick

02:07:49.600 that up. The delay in the stream is, by the way, the United Conservative Party's stream. So I can

02:07:56.080 tell you we're giving you such a fast stream that Rachel Emanuel can give you the results even

02:08:00.100 before the UCP does just with that delay. So I appreciate your patience there. We're going to go

02:08:05.740 to that right now. But it sounds like, and I haven't seen the specific numbers, exactly like

02:08:10.320 we thought was going to happen. Rebecca Schultz has now been dropped off the ballot and we'll go

02:08:15.540 to the feed now.

02:08:19.600 Ballot. 0.97

02:08:32.520 Rebecca Schultz with 8.37% of the vote drops off the ballot.

02:08:40.040 The remaining candidates percentages are Brian Jean, 13.5%, Travis Taves, 31.92%, Danielle

02:08:55.700 Smith 46.21 percent so not really any surprise in these numbers pretty much exactly like we were

02:09:21.140 anticipating. This latest round, which had Todd Lowen's votes reallocated, puts Danielle Smith

02:09:26.480 at 46.2%, Travis Taves at 31.9%, Brian Jean at 13.5%, and Rebecca Schultz at 8.4%. She's now

02:09:37.760 been dropped off the ballot, and her votes will be reallocated in the fifth round. Now,

02:09:43.460 just looking at the raw numbers here. So in the last round, Danielle Smith was at 35,095 0.96

02:09:50.980 votes. On this round, she's at 38,496 votes. So she went up from 41.7% to 46.2%. So she didn't get

02:10:04.600 all of Todd Lowen's support. Todd Lowen had 6,500 votes. And as we see, Danielle Smith just went up

02:10:10.720 by about roughly half that. So again, it's tough to say because you don't know why people vote

02:10:16.800 certain ways and if ballots were spoiled. But it does seem like there were a lot of people that

02:10:21.720 were not willing to go to Danielle Smith, even if she was the most similar to Todd Lowen,

02:10:26.980 who was their preferred candidate in this case. No, I think you're absolutely right. I had

02:10:31.920 wondered if, as the night went on, would we ever see any factor of anybody but Danielle? Because

02:10:38.980 in the minds of some conservative voters, her decision to cross the floor, lead the

02:10:44.440 Walrose floor crossing and joined the PC government of the late Jim Prentice, possibly some people

02:10:52.160 see that as an unforgivable sin. And therefore, even if you like many of the things that she

02:10:58.380 stands for, you like her Sovereignty Act, you like her be tough with Ottawa commentary,

02:11:06.480 maybe there is that cohort of people who just say, I'm sorry, I cannot get over what happened

02:11:11.220 way back in 2014, 2015. So that might explain it. I don't know. Certainly Northern Alberta,

02:11:19.580 Northwestern Alberta is an interesting part of the province and doesn't always go exactly how

02:11:26.440 you might think in nominations or in leadership votes. So we're definitely having an exciting

02:11:31.520 night. That's for sure. Yeah. And just to, again, crunch some of the numbers here. So 46.2%

02:11:37.960 is what Danielle Smith is at now. 1.00

02:11:40.720 She needs to get to 50% plus one. 1.00

02:11:43.440 Rebecca Schultz at 8.4%. 0.99

02:11:45.880 So if half of the voters, or I mean less than half,

02:11:50.080 but if just under half of the voters for Rebecca Schultz

02:11:52.920 have Danielle Smith as their next choice, 1.00

02:11:56.280 she'll win on the next ballot.

02:11:58.280 I guess the question I put to you, William,

02:11:59.980 do you think that's gonna happen?

02:12:01.440 Because I didn't see, I mean,

02:12:02.520 even if Rebecca Schultz didn't get in 1.00

02:12:04.000 on the beat up of Danielle Smith, 0.99

02:12:06.020 I don't see on the surface a lot of crossover between those two candidates.

02:12:11.260 Certainly, I think you're right.

02:12:13.160 I mean, if Danielle is able to win on the next ballot, I suspect it won't be by a huge margin.

02:12:20.540 I suspect that it will be a mathematically, it'll be a mathematical win, but it'll be a very narrow margin for her. 0.83

02:12:27.960 The only thing I can think of is maybe going to influence the vote is she now is the only female candidate who is running still on the ballot. 0.97

02:12:36.200 If you were voting a slate of candidates that was all female, then you would have to make Daniel Smith your next choice. 0.75

02:12:42.980 So I have no idea if that is something that people do when they vote. 0.93

02:12:48.460 But, you know, people vote for all sorts of reasons, and they're not always the logical or obvious ones that you might assume.

02:12:55.800 So I do think it'll be interesting, but I think we're either going to see Daniel Smith come within a handful of percentage points of winning or possibly even take it with a very razor within margin on the next ballot.

02:13:09.080 Well, we're going to carry those results live as they come in.

02:13:13.760 Rachel Emanuel is in Calgary at UCB headquarters.

02:13:16.680 And I understand now she's with Tarek El Naga, who I've had on the show.

02:13:20.740 And I've actually been on Tarek's horse before, which come to think of it might be animal cruelty.

02:13:26.180 Andrew, I just got to interrupt.

02:13:27.820 We got more results.

02:13:28.900 Tarek El Naga has done lots of great stuff in Alberta.

02:13:31.940 Take it away, Rachel.

02:13:34.060 Sorry, they announced that the results were coming.

02:13:35.880 we thought no candidate receives a majority yet i'm not sure if you guys can hear over there

02:13:41.000 we're going to another ballot brian gene has dropped off from the race

02:13:50.600 we're just waiting for some more information here i'll read it to you live as it comes

02:13:53.480 here are the percentages for candidate brian gene had 14.83 so brian gene had 14.8

02:14:05.000 travis taves had 37.43

02:14:14.760 and daniel smith with 47. i didn't catch the final percentages of that but very close now

02:14:19.640 we should have the final results on the next round obviously but we're taking it to the very

02:14:24.160 end here so there's definitely a lot of excitement in the room for sure thank you for that rachel so

02:14:31.180 i just we're going to get those numbers in writing here and once the the party feed catches up we'll

02:14:37.680 actually run that so you can hear it directly and we'll get the graphic up on the screen there but

02:14:42.320 again as william and i were just talking about sounds like danielle smith did not get that 0.99

02:14:47.480 margin she needed from 1.00

02:14:49.340 Rebecca Schultz. Let's go to the feed. 0.75

02:14:54.000 Ballot votes cast

02:14:55.360 so we will go to another ballot.

02:14:58.300 Brian Jean

02:14:59.160 drops off from the race

02:15:00.920 and the next choices on those

02:15:03.320 ballots will be distributed

02:15:05.320 to the remaining two candidates.

02:15:12.160 Here are the

02:15:13.240 percentages per candidate.

02:15:16.480 Brian Jean

02:15:17.400 had 14.83%, Travis Taves 37.43%, Daniel Smith 47.73%.

02:15:31.840 We'll be back in a minute.

02:15:40.760 Thank you very much.

02:15:42.560 I feel bad.

02:15:43.180 I don't know if we still have Tarek Elnega.

02:15:46.020 If we do have Tarek, let's get him back, please.

02:15:50.100 Rachel, I feel so bad.

02:15:51.320 Tarek was like, you need to get Tarek's like rodeo rope and bring him back.

02:15:55.100 That's how he would do it.

02:15:56.020 So Tarek is great.

02:15:57.380 I will just give a bit of an introduction because he's one of the most fascinating people in Alberta politics.

02:16:01.900 He is from Dubai and he went to the Calgary Stampede on vacation once and just fell in love with the West.

02:16:08.000 So he sold his house in the United Arab Emirates, moved to Calgary and got or moved to Airdrie.

02:16:13.180 I think he got a truck and power tools and a cowboy hat and now is like a professional on the

02:16:19.540 rodeo circuit. And he gave me a tour of his acreage out there where he does the work with

02:16:25.460 his horses. So Tarek is fantastic and has been a very strong voice for an independent Alberta.

02:16:30.700 And I'm very curious, as you and I were discussing earlier, William, how many of those people Danielle

02:16:36.120 Smith is able to bring back into the fold, assuming she becomes the leader and we don't

02:16:40.680 have some just by some magical twist of fate, you know, Jeb Bush on the seventh ballot or something 0.79

02:16:45.580 like that. But I mean, the numbers here, it's great for suspense, but what do you make in the

02:16:50.780 numbers here? What are their significance beyond just, you know, how long it takes us to wrap up

02:16:54.860 the show? Yeah, I mean, I think there's some really interesting things. Danielle really only

02:16:59.900 got a sizable bump from when Todd Lowen dropped off the ballot. Otherwise, all of her increases 1.00

02:17:06.020 were pretty marginal throughout the thing.

02:17:09.900 But obviously in the last round, 1.00

02:17:11.960 a large majority of Rebecca Schultz's second choices 1.00

02:17:16.120 or later choices did go to Travis Tate's.

02:17:19.020 And that is reflected in the fact

02:17:20.240 that he gained a very sizable chunk.

02:17:22.940 That being said, he's at 37.4% and needs 50% plus one.

02:17:29.380 There's 14.8% up for offer on Brian Jean.

02:17:33.580 He would have to win almost all of it in order for him to beat Daniel Smith on the on the final ballot.

02:17:40.480 I think I mean, it's not impossible, obviously, mathematically, but it would be extremely difficult for him to capture that large a share.

02:17:48.140 I would say there's probably a decent argument that Brian Jean voters did rank Daniel Smith ahead of Travis Davis.

02:17:55.220 But but you are right. If there is like an anti Daniel Smith sentiment forming some that that would be the path to victory.

02:18:01.980 Now, I don't think that is going to be what happens, but we've always said it hasn't been a lock for Danielle Smith.

02:18:07.600 Like in the federal one, it was a lock for Pierre Polly F.

02:18:09.900 In this case, I saw there was a path for Travis Taves.

02:18:12.820 I think we do have Tarek Elnega back with Rachel Emanuel now.

02:18:17.580 Sorry about that, Tarek.

02:18:18.700 So I was just in the middle of introducing him.

02:18:20.760 Tarek Elnega, he ran for the leadership of the Maverick Party.

02:18:23.520 He also ran to be MP for the Maverick Party in the last federal election.

02:18:27.400 You were unsuccessful in both those bids.

02:18:28.740 But I know that a lot of people wanted you to put your name for it for the UCP Leadership Contest.

02:18:33.340 Did you ever consider it?

02:18:34.880 You know, it wasn't the right time.

02:18:36.720 What I'm really excited about is to see, I mean, the Maverick platform is all about pro-Western autonomy.

02:18:41.960 And it's really exciting to see candidates that are pro-Alberta autonomy, predominantly Danielle Smith here,

02:18:47.600 really pushing that Alberta sovereignty and that Alberta autonomy message.

02:18:51.440 And I'll take it. That's good news for Alberta, for sure.

02:18:54.600 You know, we've got two candidates left. It's between Danielle Smith and Travis Taves.

02:18:58.300 It's Taves when, you know, do you think that he's been an Alberta sovereignty candidate, you know, pro Alberta, or you're not really getting that messaging from him?

02:19:04.900 Well, I think whoever wins it now realizes that half the base, give or take, is pro-sovereignty and pro-the-sovereignty act.

02:19:12.440 So you're going to have to need to bring them in.

02:19:14.420 So if Danielle is not the one that wins and Travis Taves wins, then he's going to have to bring that in.

02:19:19.560 It's a pretty divided party, not dissimilar to how it was a 50-50 split with Kenny.

02:19:23.760 so it's it's time to unify that party and and not discount the sovereignty movement of the party

02:19:29.540 sure so you're mentioning you know the party you know people who are running they're kind of

02:19:33.140 realizing that this is something that's important for the base you know i mentioned a bunch of people

02:19:36.460 wanted you to run which shows that it is important for the base people wanted you to run you decided

02:19:40.140 against that do you have any interest in running for a ucp nomination at any point you're going to

02:19:44.660 step back from politics for the time being you know what i'm not going to close the door uh to

02:19:48.780 running again. Right now, I've got a vested interest on making sure the NDP loses. So that's

02:19:55.240 where I'm at. So whether Danielle wins or Travis wins, I want to see the NDP lose. There's no room

02:20:01.400 for socialism in this province or in my life. And that's what I'm focused on. Whether I personally

02:20:06.220 run or not, I'm not going to close the door on that. You mentioned that you want to make sure

02:20:09.980 the NDP loses. We're talking a little bit about, oh, I'm sorry, we have the results again. At least

02:20:13.880 we got a couple minutes this time. All right. Thanks very much. Yeah. Yeah. Take care. All

02:20:18.500 right. All right. That was Tarek. We have some more results, so we're going to go to live.

02:20:28.920 It's Danielle Smith. She's the premier and the crowd goes wild behind me. You can hear

02:20:32.840 the excitement in the room. Danielle Smith has won with 53.77% of the vote. Travis Taves

02:20:40.100 has come in second with 46.23% of the vote and you can just hear the excitement in the room

02:20:46.440 it came all the way down to the end but Daniel Smith was able to pull a victory off at the end

02:20:51.300 the question now will be whether the fact that she waited so long you know she didn't get that

02:20:55.840 first ballot victory as many of us expected she didn't get that victory later to the end will

02:20:59.600 that impact her ability to unite the caucus going forward and I'm sure your stream is just about

02:21:03.640 up now so I'll throw back to you Andrew. Yeah thank you Rachel we will go to that feed when

02:21:08.840 it comes in but uh danielle smith has won the ucp leadership race will be the next premier and uh

02:21:15.520 just it sounds like from the raw numbers there that roughly half of brian gene's votes went to

02:21:21.780 danielle smith and roughly half went to travis taves and as william and i were saying uh it

02:21:26.120 would have needed to be more much more lopsided than that uh here are the official numbers

02:21:30.520 Ladies and gentlemen, we have the results of the sixth ballot.

02:21:40.200 Our members have elected a new leader.

02:21:42.700 Please welcome the next Premier of our province, Danielle Smith.

02:22:00.520 .

02:22:30.520 Thank you.

02:23:00.520 Thank you.

02:23:30.520 I'm back.

02:23:41.660 Well, if you're wondering why I wasn't nervous tonight,

02:23:45.280 I must thank Layla Fole,

02:23:47.220 whose grandma's watching from the Good Fish Reserve,

02:23:50.180 and she gave me these peace feeds

02:23:51.720 at the very beginning of the evening,

02:23:53.560 and Layla, they worked.

02:23:54.940 So thank you so much for your support.

02:23:57.020 I appreciate it.

02:23:57.900 And you should also know the family connection that we have with our returning officer, Rick Orman, was the very first campaign that I worked on in 1992 when he was running for leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party.

02:24:12.200 and the reason I supported him is because he and my dad played football together at Crescent Heights

02:24:17.620 and dad is here this evening as well Rick if you want to go over and say hello so I'm just so

02:24:21.720 delighted that our big conservative family is all together in one room united and strong

02:24:29.540 my fellow albertans over the last 117 years we have written a remarkable story together

02:24:43.340 it's a story of pioneers and farmers entrepreneurs and innovators communities and families a place

02:24:52.620 where the best and brightest come from every corner of this world to join with us in building

02:24:58.140 one of the greatest places on earth to live to work and to raise our families

02:25:07.980 tonight marks the beginning of a new chapter in the alberta story it is time for alberta

02:25:14.060 to take its place as a senior partner in building a strong and unified canada

02:25:19.900 no longer will alberta ask permission from ottawa to be prosperous and free

02:25:31.360 we will not have our voices silenced and censored

02:25:39.460 we will not be told what we must put in our bodies in order to work or to travel

02:25:49.900 We will not have our resources landlocked or our energy phased out of existence by virtue-signalling Prime Ministers.

02:26:05.680 Albertans, not Ottawa, will chart our own destiny on our own terms,

02:26:10.380 and we will work with our fellow Canadians to build the most free and prosperous country on Earth.

02:26:19.900 before speaking further i wanted to thank first and foremost my husband david it's funny when i

02:26:26.940 started running again somebody asked me if i'd gotten divorced because david standard answered

02:26:32.300 when anyone asked me if i was getting in politics again was yeah she's welcome to get back into

02:26:37.500 politics with her new husband he still loves me after all this imagine that my wonderful parents

02:26:45.100 doug and sharon are here this evening as my uncle blaine and my brother carrie my brother doug and

02:26:50.700 his wife carrie i'm delighted to have my family with me but i do also want to congratulate and

02:26:55.900 thank my fellow leadership candidates not only for their commitment to the party but also to

02:27:01.180 democracy over the last several months these great men and women have placed their lives on hold and

02:27:07.500 sacrificed greatly because they love this province with all their hearts they want to see our

02:27:12.700 province move forward with strength and prosperity as much as anyone in Alberta. I want to thank

02:27:19.020 Travis Chaves for his integrity and for leading the charge and bringing our province's budget

02:27:28.540 back to surplus from the brink of disaster under Rachel Notley's NDP.

02:27:33.820 Alberta and our caucus are going to lean heavily on your strength and experience in the months

02:27:43.800 and years ahead. I also want to thank Brian Jean for his passion and commitment to the grassroots

02:27:49.220 and to making life more affordable for millions of Albertans suffering from the inflation crisis

02:27:54.440 brought on by the NDP Liberal Coalition in Ottawa. Thank you.

02:27:58.340 and on a personal note i want to thank brian for showing leadership after i made a mistake

02:28:07.120 in judgment in 2014 learning from your example has prepared me for today and this party will

02:28:13.560 always owe you a debt of gratitude as one of the founders of this united conservative party thank

02:28:19.380 you Brian I also want to recognize Rebecca Schultz for her compassion class

02:28:28.320 and innovative ideas Rebecca you are one of the brightest lights in our province

02:28:37.140 and I can't wait to work with you to ensure so many of those great ideas

02:28:40.800 become a reality to Todd Lowen thank you so much for reminding us that MLAs are

02:28:54.780 the voice of the people in government not the government's mouthpiece to the

02:28:59.920 people and I look forward to working with you to ensure caucus lives by that

02:29:06.800 that principle moving forward. And on that note, I understand that over this last week, Todd,

02:29:12.620 your fellow UCP MLAs indicated overwhelmingly in favor of you to rejoin the UCP caucus.

02:29:22.640 And I invite you to attend our caucus meeting tomorrow morning so we can get back to work.

02:29:26.900 So thanks so much and welcome back, Todd. I also want to thank Raj Ansani for her class

02:29:35.160 and commitment to vulnerable and senior Albertans and I look forward to advancing those causes

02:29:40.440 together Rajan and to Lila here thank you for your passion and commitment to serving Albertans

02:29:48.760 even if that means fighting a cowboy who's fallen off a uh a bull or fighting no other way fighting

02:29:55.280 a bull to save a fallen cowboy thanks Lila I want to thank each and every one of you who ran

02:30:04.460 You're all great Albertans, and I look forward to serving alongside you.

02:30:08.800 I would be remiss as well if I did not thank my friend, Premier Jason Kenney.

02:30:18.880 Let us remember that Premier Kenney has fought for Albertans for decades,

02:30:23.740 first as an advocate for taxpayers,

02:30:25.980 then as one of the most effective and influential Conservative Cabinet Ministers in Canadian history,

02:30:31.620 then leading the charge on unifying the conservative movement, running and beating

02:30:36.040 Rachel Notley's NDP, and then governing as premier for one of the most tumultuous times in Alberta

02:30:41.460 history. Although we may have had our differences these last couple of years on a couple of matters

02:30:46.800 of policy, I want him to know that I admire and respect him. Thank you, Jason, for being

02:30:52.400 such a loyal Canadian and a giant in the conservative movement. Thank you, premier.

02:31:01.620 And a special thanks to my campaign team who dedicated the last few months of their lives to helping us get to this moment. I simply wouldn't be here without you. And I should name just a few. The leadership of Matt Altheim, my campaign manager from Edmonton.

02:31:17.600 yeah you'll be happy to know he knows how to beat nvp in their own backyard that's why we've got

02:31:24.420 him on our team and rob anderson who's been such a great support for me over the years an incredible

02:31:30.700 policy advisor thank you and also the the other team i have to tell you one one of my campaign

02:31:37.060 members would always introduce our team saying we've got an lpn an electrician at home moms a

02:31:42.540 single mom, a PhD, and a yak farmer. And that is no joke. Every campaign needs a yak farmer. 0.91

02:31:51.000 And finally, thank you to our almost 125,000 UCP members and the thousands of volunteers from 0.99

02:31:57.520 every campaign in all corners of our province. Thank you for loving and serving our province.

02:32:03.260 Thank you for the hours spent fighting for your party, your candidate, and for the values that

02:32:09.080 they represent. If there's one thing I've learned about Albertans, it's that we don't expect our

02:32:13.660 leaders to be perfect, but we do expect them to stay humble, admit when they're wrong, and to

02:32:19.580 learn from their mistakes. I love that about our province, and I'm grateful to have earned this

02:32:28.260 second chance from you. I will never forget it, and I pledge to you tonight, I will not let you down.

02:32:39.080 My friends, tonight I invite all United Conservative Party supporters, our party, our caucus, fellow

02:32:48.500 leadership candidates, all of us, regardless of who we supported during this leadership

02:32:52.840 race, to come together and unite for the good of our great province.

02:33:01.620 Albertans want us to be unified.

02:33:04.500 They want us to succeed.

02:33:06.100 Albertans don't want to elect a socialist NDP government any more than they want to see the

02:33:11.140 Toronto Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup. Sorry, honey, David's a Toronto Maple Leaf fan.

02:33:23.060 However, my friends, Albertans will no longer tolerate infighting and disunity. They rightly

02:33:28.440 expect their provincial Conservative Party to be competent, cooperative, and unified against

02:33:33.860 the constant threat posed to our economy by the NDP liberal coalition in Ottawa. Unity is not a

02:33:40.860 talking point. It is an action. It is something you practice rather than preach. Now is not the

02:33:45.700 time for settling old scores or rivalries. It's not the time to punish our fellow conservatives

02:33:50.900 for past mistakes. This is why as premier and leader of this party, I am wiping the slate clean.

02:33:57.300 The membership is spoken.

02:34:03.860 They have given us direction on how they want us to stand up to Ottawa and protect our freedoms.

02:34:08.240 And we will follow our members' direction on this without delay.

02:34:14.800 However, every single UCP MLA, regardless of who they supported or what they have said

02:34:20.280 or what decisions they have made in the past, good or bad, is not important at this moment.

02:34:25.500 All that matters now is that what we do to serve Albertans from this day forward.

02:34:30.540 And I want to invite each of our MLAs, our members, our volunteers, our supporters, every single one of you to join me to govern with strength and compassion, to protect our fellow Albertans from the NDP-Liberal coalition in Ottawa, and to lead this party to a resounding victory against the NDP in 2023.

02:34:48.960 to win in 2023 we need to focus on the issues Albertans are most concerned with as you know

02:35:01.260 Canada and Alberta are in the midst of an inflation and affordability crisis that has

02:35:05.760 been primarily caused by the fiscally destructive policies of the NDP coalition with the Liberals

02:35:11.980 in Ottawa when you flood the money supply with hundreds of billions of new spending

02:35:16.220 and pursue policies that spike the price of energy and transportation,

02:35:21.020 the result is crippling inflation that is hurting a sizable majority of Albertans. 0.95

02:35:26.780 The 30-year-old university graduate living in her parents' basement

02:35:30.220 because she can't afford the damaged deposit on a rental.

02:35:33.780 The single mom who has to resort to smaller and less nutritious meals 1.00

02:35:37.220 for her young son and daughter because she can't make the budget stretch any further.

02:35:41.820 The working father forced to take extra shifts in overtime

02:35:44.960 because if he doesn't he won't be able to pay for the extra interest being charged on the family's

02:35:49.760 mortgage from repeated interest rate hikes and the senior living on a fixed income anxious about how

02:35:56.320 they're going to afford to pay for their needed prescriptions when their power and heating bills

02:36:01.440 increase this coming winter these are not uncommon stories they're they are not exceptions to the

02:36:07.280 rule i've been speaking with hundreds of these albertans for months albertans and all canadians

02:36:13.600 are suffering terribly every day at the hands of an inflation and affordability crisis

02:36:18.640 and that is why i find it so callous that in the middle of this crisis

02:36:22.720 the ndp liberal coalition in ottawa just decided to triple the carbon tax

02:36:30.800 this will only make energy and groceries and food and fuel and housing more expensive

02:36:36.640 everything we need to live and i find it incomprehensible that rachel notley has so

02:36:41.600 so far refused to call on her federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh to lobby his taxing cohort Justin

02:36:48.060 Trudeau to reverse that terrible decision hurting Alberta families. There is no excuse for any party

02:36:58.060 leader seeking to be Premier of Alberta to sacrifice the welfare of Albertans for the sake

02:37:03.300 of towing the line of her federal party. It is time for Ms. Notley to put the welfare of Albertans

02:37:09.280 above the anti-Alberta policies of her federal NDP leader.

02:37:18.920 She is not putting Alberta first, and that's the difference between us.

02:37:22.820 I will always, always put Albertans first. No apologies.

02:37:32.800 Clearly, Albertans want nothing to do with the Notley Singh-Trudeau alliance of economic destruction.

02:37:38.060 But to earn the trust of Albertans, we need to do more than just stand up to the NDP Liberal

02:37:44.020 Coalition. We must do more than be the party of economic growth and balanced budgets and debt

02:37:49.160 reduction and lower taxes. That's just part of who we are as a party and as a government.

02:37:54.480 But we also need to show Albertans that we can be trusted to compassionately care for our vulnerable

02:37:59.580 and our seniors, especially in this time of crippling inflation. We need to reform the

02:38:04.920 dysfunction of Alberta Health Services and repair our broken EMS services with

02:38:10.040 swift decisive action. That also means repairing our relationship with nurses

02:38:17.640 and doctors. It means replacing managers with frontline staff. It means attracting,

02:38:23.640 exactly, it means attracting additional health professionals from around the

02:38:28.740 world and it means that as premier when I direct AHS management to double ICU

02:38:34.860 capacity by a specific date and give them the resources to do so, that direction is followed

02:38:40.900 immediately. And if they can't do that, then we will find others who can do it for them.

02:38:53.220 Although we will always balance the budget and control increases in spending, we must also

02:38:57.920 demonstrate the compassion Albertans expect of us by ensuring the vulnerable can afford the

02:39:03.380 necessities of life during this inflationary crisis. We must ensure our teachers, our children

02:39:09.620 have the teachers and education assistants and tutors that they need to succeed, especially

02:39:15.160 after the disruption to education over the last couple of years. We must address the mental health

02:39:20.720 and opioid crisis that is stealing our young people from us. And we must give a hand up, a warm

02:39:26.980 hug, real hope and real help to those on our streets who don't know where else to turn. We are

02:39:32.820 Albertans. Yes, we are entrepreneurs and business people and fiscally prudent, but we also have

02:39:42.240 heart and compassion that matches the size of our mountains. Our generous compassion is the

02:39:47.860 very soul of Alberta, and Albertans demand a government that reflects that compassion,

02:39:52.740 especially in times like these. As premier, I will ensure we act swiftly to demonstrate exactly that.

02:40:02.820 Now, friends, in the months ahead, we must recognize that there are those in Ottawa and the establishment, even some in Alberta, that don't want to see our party be unified.

02:40:12.860 They don't want us to succeed. And sadly, these folks will do and say almost anything to keep us from succeeding.

02:40:19.540 They will dredge up old statements and mistakes from the past.

02:40:22.700 They will use cancel culture and fear mongering in an attempt to scare and dissuade Albertans from supporting our MLAs and me.

02:40:29.980 For example, it is safe to say that many in the not-leasing Trudeau alliance will claim that my plan to stand up to Ottawa with the Sovereignty Act is somehow meant to move Alberta toward leaving our beloved Canada.

02:40:41.900 That is a lie.

02:40:43.560 What Albertans want is for our province and all provinces to have our rights under the Constitution of Canada protected and respected by an increasingly hostile Ottawa regime that seeks to control every aspect of our lives.

02:40:59.980 From health care to education, to free speech, to delivery of our social programs,

02:41:07.080 they want to control it all, because that makes it easier for them to impose their agenda

02:41:12.560 on Albertans and on Canadians. That is not the way to unify a country or secure prosperity.

02:41:18.740 That is a road to division and economic ruin, which is why, in closing tonight, I want to speak

02:41:24.980 to our fellow Canadians. Albertans love Canada. It is our country, our home. All we want is to

02:41:32.540 live, grow, and prosper in the manner that we choose. We want to set our own course,

02:41:44.120 develop our resources and economy, and run our social programs and society as we think best.

02:41:50.380 We also want to share our prosperity with the entire country.

02:41:54.340 So tonight, I invite every Canadian to partner with us, partner with Alberta.

02:41:59.560 Let's work together to build a strong, prosperous, and unified Canada that we know that we can be.

02:42:10.260 A Canada where provinces work together and empower one another to reach our unique individual goals and aspirations.

02:42:17.080 A Canada that celebrates our great diversity of opinion and thought, rather than one that demonizes and sanctions one another for expression and speech deemed unacceptable by woke politicians in Ottawa.

02:42:32.260 A Canada that respects all of our citizens, regardless of their religious, cultural, or political beliefs.

02:42:38.860 Together, we can be the solution to the world's energy crisis and wrestle away the leverage

02:42:45.060 that thug dictators are using against an energy-starved Europe.

02:42:53.260 Together, we can be the energy superpower that provides billions of people in Africa

02:42:58.820 and in Asia with the clean LNG needed to replace their reliance on coal, wood, and other high

02:43:05.100 emission fuel sources, saving billions of tons of emissions and replacing them with billions

02:43:10.100 of dollars for our citizens and our economy and our social programs.

02:43:17.480 We can become the nation that develops the breakthrough technologies that make continued

02:43:22.240 fossil fuel use not only possible but preferable for fueling the energy needs of this generation

02:43:28.080 and the next. And we can feed the planet with our world-class food producers and technologies.

02:43:34.080 We can build the most innovative, entrepreneurial, and well-educated workforce in the developed world where students are taught to create and build and innovate rather than to conform, obey, and profess allegiance to failed and outdated ideologies.

02:43:49.620 Alberta wants to play a central role in building that Canada with you as an equal partner and I

02:43:59.480 invite you and those you elect to join us in building the most prosperous and free country

02:44:04.300 on earth. My friends, tomorrow I'm going to be meeting with our MLAs and we will discuss unity

02:44:15.440 and how to best meet the massive responsibility in front of us.

02:44:18.880 And like you, we will all be returning home to celebrate Thanksgiving,

02:44:22.900 to give thanks for our families and loved ones that for too long were kept apart,

02:44:28.100 to give thanks for our freedoms and the opportunities ahead,

02:44:31.760 and to give thanks for our great province, her wide open spaces, pristine landscapes, and amazing people.

02:44:38.880 And after Thanksgiving next Tuesday, I will travel to our capital city to be sworn in

02:44:43.840 as the next premier of Alberta.

02:44:52.520 And I can't wait to get started.

02:44:54.700 Thank you, and may God keep our land glorious and free.

02:45:13.840 That is Alberta's Premier-designate, Danielle Smith, now the leader of the United Conservative Party.

02:45:31.160 As she just said at the end there, as of Tuesday, she will be the Premier of Alberta,

02:45:36.160 getting sworn in at the Alberta Legislature in Edmonton on Tuesday,

02:45:40.080 although getting right to a business meeting with caucus tomorrow

02:45:43.660 And before I bring my colleague, William McBeth, back in, I want to just point out the, I guess, the breaking news that came out of this is that she has extended the hand to Todd Lowen, the expelled former UCP MLA and her competitor in this race and said, you know, come on back tomorrow morning.

02:46:00.140 And that's, I think, a very big step, not necessarily a surprising one, but I think a very important one.

02:46:04.800 Yeah, absolutely. I think if you listen to large sections of her speech, she went out of her way to talk about her fellow candidates and a lot of the work they had done. And that, of course, is very important when you're trying to put together a sometimes fractious group of MLAs and leadership candidates who didn't win, who won't be getting sworn in as premier on Tuesday.

02:46:25.220 So I definitely think she said a lot of very interesting things in her speech.

02:46:29.420 It's pretty clear what her key talking points are going to be, the freest, most prosperous place in the world.

02:46:37.200 But I would say you also heard her talk about a lot of things that maybe people wouldn't have assumed or associated with Daniel Smith.

02:46:44.460 Things like caring for the less fortunate, for our seniors, or people who are having trouble buying food or medication or paying for their heat.

02:46:52.420 So I think you will see a clear, gentler gang out on the domestic front, even as she maintains a fairly aggressive posture against Ottawa.

02:47:04.000 Yeah, I think that's a very reasonable analysis.

02:47:06.920 And I want to bring in Rachel Emanuel, our Alberta reporter, who's been doing some tremendous work on the ground in Calgary and gave you the leadership results even before the UCP feed did.

02:47:17.340 She's that quick.

02:47:17.980 She's like faster than the Internet, which is fantastic.

02:47:20.100 So although not saying much sometimes if you're a customer of some companies.

02:47:24.560 But in any case, Rachel, let's talk a little bit about your sense overall now.

02:47:30.840 Not a huge surprise in terms of the results.

02:47:34.140 In fact, even when you were talking to people from other campaigns, there seemed to be an understanding earlier on that this was headed towards a Danielle Smith victory.

02:47:41.880 But as someone who's been following her campaign in Alberta politics, when you heard her speech, what was your take on it?

02:47:48.560 Anything that you were surprised that she included in there or anything noteworthy that maybe you weren't surprised by, but you think it's something that people need to pay attention to?

02:47:57.560 You know, I think she came out really strong in her speech just now.

02:48:00.280 We heard a lot of the points that she's been making throughout the campaign.

02:48:02.600 And I think I noted in my coverage of it in my written article that she really started this crusade against, you know, COVID-19 and against some of the policies that we've seen regarding COVID-19.

02:48:12.180 She started that when she was on the radio during her sort of exodus from politics, if you will.

02:48:16.840 She was really pushing back on a lot of the government narrative on COVID-19.

02:48:20.060 You know, she interviewed Jason Kenney at some points and disagreed with some of his decisions, including decisions like to imprison pastors.

02:48:26.800 And we saw a lot of those early conversations that she had translate itself into the UCP leadership race, into her policy in the leadership race, and a lot of the policies that she put forward.

02:48:36.220 And, you know, I think that's, to her credit, one of the reasons she was able to set herself apart from the other candidates, because some of the candidates that were with Kendi when those decisions were made, you know, understandably probably didn't feel comfortable making those decisions because it would have looked rather silly given their record being in the Kendi government.

02:48:50.620 And I think now, during her final speech just now, we just saw a stronger version of that.

02:48:54.860 you know she came out and she reiterated a lot of the points that she made during the campaign and

02:48:59.320 you know she just was really solidified her promises to protect people's ability to put 0.95

02:49:03.860 what they want to in their bodies and again to fight back from ottawa she of course has positioned

02:49:08.480 herself as someone who will go toe-to-toe to ottawa if she won the premiership now she has

02:49:12.500 and she's made it very clear that that will be a number one priority for her from the get-go and

02:49:16.700 that's been evidenced by her promise to make the alberta sovereignty act to be her first piece of

02:49:21.040 legislation when she's in government so I thought we heard a lot of things here from her speech

02:49:25.420 today that she's been saying the last couple of weeks you know at many campaign events that I've

02:49:29.380 been to I see similar messaging from her since I started covering her campaign in the early days of

02:49:34.360 May. Before I ask you another question there Rachel Justin Trudeau has just tweeted I would

02:49:41.660 like to congratulate Danielle Smith on becoming the next Premier of Alberta let's work together

02:49:46.580 to build a better future for Albertans by delivering concrete results,

02:49:50.540 making life more affordable, creating good jobs, and more.

02:49:54.020 So we'll see if the pleasantries last to their first meeting. 0.96

02:49:58.640 One thing that has come up here is that she does not have a seat.

02:50:02.220 She is not an MLA.

02:50:03.340 She's the only candidate in the race who's not an MLA.

02:50:05.920 She was going to be running for a seat, although now that she's the leader,

02:50:10.080 she's signaled that she has a couple of MLAs that have offered to step down 0.82

02:50:14.260 so that she can run immediately in a by-election

02:50:16.640 and have several months in the legislature before the next election. 0.56

02:50:20.140 Do we know yet where she will be running?

02:50:22.940 She has not announced yet where she's going to be running,

02:50:25.140 but as you mentioned, some MLAs have offered to step down for her.

02:50:28.340 That being said, there are a few MLAs who have already stepped down

02:50:31.440 and their seats will become available,

02:50:32.820 so I think we're probably going to see Smith running in one of those ridings fairly soon.

02:50:37.860 So I don't think she's going to be waiting until General Electrum.

02:50:39.940 I think she wants to get into the legislature as soon as possible,

02:50:42.320 and I've heard some speculation about ridings that she's going to be running in,

02:50:45.540 but nothing confirmed yet.

02:50:46.540 So I won't give those reports, you know, quite yet,

02:50:48.900 but I can assure you that I will let the people know

02:50:51.040 as soon as I get them confirmed in the coming days.

02:50:53.620 Well, I know everyone is celebrating there,

02:50:55.960 so I don't want to take up too much more of your time.

02:50:58.300 Any closing thoughts for this evening, Rachel?

02:51:01.320 You know, I think it's been an interesting race.

02:51:03.020 I think Vitor's comments were sort of right on the mark

02:51:04.880 that at the end there, you know, it really could have been anyone's to take.

02:51:07.300 I don't think Danielle had the victory by such a wide margin

02:51:10.760 as I was maybe personally expecting based on some of the crowd sizes

02:51:14.100 that I've seen at campaign events per Smith

02:51:16.120 compared to some of the other campaign events that I see.

02:51:18.480 But, you know, the question has really been circulating as one of unity.

02:51:21.500 Will Danielle Smith be able to unify the caucus going forward?

02:51:24.160 And now that question is even more prominent

02:51:25.780 considering that it took her all the way to the final ballot to pull off that victory.

02:51:29.260 So I'm curious to see what's going to happen in the days to come.

02:51:31.320 I was looking forward to maybe a little bit of a rest.

02:51:33.280 It's been a long UCP leadership race since May.

02:51:35.560 I've been covering it for a long time.

02:51:37.140 But I suspect that there will be plenty more to cover in the days to come.

02:51:39.420 I don't think that rest is going to be coming anytime soon.

02:51:42.600 Well, I think you probably deserve a bit of a break as well,

02:51:45.080 but I'll let you get back to the festivities.

02:51:47.060 Fantastic work tonight. 0.90

02:51:48.460 Rachel Emanuel, Alberta reporter for True North.

02:51:50.600 Thank you and have a good night.

02:51:51.780 Thank you.

02:51:53.360 And just heading back to my colleague, William Macbeth,

02:51:57.020 here in these closing couple of moments.

02:51:59.400 William, just any thoughts that you have burning

02:52:02.440 that you'd like to share just before we say farewell?

02:52:04.640 well. I would say she's already sort of anticipated where she expects to be attacked. And I think she

02:52:12.140 expects those attacks to come pretty fast and furious over the coming weeks. She's talked about

02:52:18.120 how they're going to pull statements she's made out of context. They're going to find

02:52:21.760 old things she's written. Of course, she was an editorial writer for quite a while.

02:52:26.680 And a talk radio host. 0.99

02:52:28.060 And a talk radio host. She's espoused a lot of opinions. And whereas I don't think her 0.99

02:52:32.880 opponents really made use of a lot of that material, I don't expect the New Democrats

02:52:39.280 to pull their punches. So I think she's already telegraphing to Albertans, look, you're going to

02:52:44.180 hear some things that maybe don't rub you the right way, but we're not going to let it throw

02:52:49.740 us off our game. We're not going to give in to cancel culture. We're not going to apologize

02:52:53.320 every single time somebody makes an outrageous claim against me. So I think that'll be an

02:52:58.680 interesting thing to watch uh over the coming weeks yeah and i i will say not to belabor the

02:53:04.600 point but it is i think important to note here that she was a pariah when she when the whole

02:53:11.880 issue happened with the floor crossing she lost a nomination uh when she started in talk radio i

02:53:17.920 said earlier she she was really hated by a lot of people and and i liked how she approached that

02:53:23.400 was such humility in her speech. She thanked Brian Jean for building the party, for building

02:53:29.180 the Wild Rose Party in her absence, and then for becoming part of the solution and founding that

02:53:34.180 United Conservative Party. And she, I thought, very humbly said thank you to Albertans for giving her

02:53:40.380 a second chance. And I think that's very important because that really, of all the criticisms I heard

02:53:46.460 about her in this particular race, that was not one of them, that people honestly did seem to move

02:53:52.380 on from that? Yeah, I think you're absolutely right, which is truly remarkable. I mean, I

02:53:57.460 had worked for Danielle and left right before that floor crossing happened. It turned out to be...

02:54:04.220 Well, that's awfully convenient. Very good timing. But, you know, I had met with her a few days after

02:54:10.980 that had happened. And, you know, to me, I couldn't think of someone in politics who had

02:54:17.120 been more hated by her own party, by Albertans in general, and they felt very hurt and personally

02:54:23.720 betrayed by her actions. So the fact that she's recovered from that is really remarkable. It also

02:54:31.320 shows Albertans are forgiving, that we will let you recover back from a big mistake as long as

02:54:38.580 you say, I'm sorry, and I messed up. And I think, you know, Jason Kenney probably needed to take

02:54:44.840 that lesson a little bit more to heart. And we may not have had the citizenship race if he had said

02:54:49.920 a couple more times, I goofed or I made a mistake and I'm very sorry. Yeah, very much so. And again,

02:54:56.220 I know that this sometimes puts me offside with our audience, but I have had a number of very

02:55:02.200 cordial exchanges over the course of Jason Kenney's political career on the radio, off the radio, on

02:55:07.960 the podcast, off the podcast. And I think he has been a net positive figure for the conservative

02:55:14.060 movement. So I do humbly say thank you to Jason Kenney for your service. And obviously, it's a

02:55:20.780 period of transition. And Danielle Smith is the new UCP leader and as of Tuesday will be the

02:55:25.740 premier. But I can't get in on the complete obliteration of Jason Kenney's legacy, despite

02:55:36.160 my frustrations in the last couple of years. I always feel the need to clarify that because I

02:55:40.180 find often it becomes a bit too tribal on that. But we will certainly cover the race. I've known

02:55:46.000 Danielle for many years, but at True North, we will do the work that is needed and cover things

02:55:51.700 that matter to people on the right in a way that the mainstream media simply doesn't. We'll ask

02:55:56.180 them questions about things that actually matter, not about, you know, why aren't they quadrupling

02:56:00.740 or quadrupling the carbon tax or something, which I think is the first question that she'll get from

02:56:06.080 CBC at her inaugural press conference. But if you want to support the work we're doing at True North,

02:56:12.180 please do head over to donate.tnc.news. We are a national publication, but we pay attention to

02:56:20.920 Alberta, we pay attention to the West, and we pay attention to the moving and shaking of the

02:56:25.800 conservative world. And that includes covering the UCP, the CPC, the PPC, the Wild Rose Independence

02:56:31.580 party and and also justin trudeau we cover him a fair bit as well so uh fear not but we we don't

02:56:36.860 get the poutines which i think is important so uh donate.tnz.news is how you can contribute to that

02:56:42.780 and i want to give a big thank you to all of you for tuning into the show tonight and thank you

02:56:47.500 for your patience through the early tech glitches but we uh we got through those in the first few

02:56:52.060 moments thank you to rachel emmanuel and uh the team in calgary uh notably sean and also to uh

02:56:58.940 Those on the back end here, Harrison and Andrew and Noah, and of course, William, for your contributions today.

02:57:05.720 Thanks to everyone for all your help.

02:57:08.060 Have a great evening.

02:57:09.100 God bless you.

02:57:28.940 Thank you.

02:57:58.940 We'll be right back.

02:58:28.940 We'll be right back.

Juno News - October 07, 2022

United Conservative Party leadership results

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